Bridge Building with Pasta Assignment

[Namic56]

Hey, my physics teacher handed us this assigment and said have fun. He didn't explain what to do or go over how bridges work. So I was wondering if anyone here has done something similar to this. I believe I can work out the design, but what kind of pasta and glue would be most appropiate to get this done by, Dec.2 2004. Please respond soon!


Here is a link for the paper he gave us, this is all the information he gave us!
http://199.120.90.185/~msoukup/100_1643.JPG

 

[ShawnD]

Here are just a few ideas I would play with.

-Make the road out of lasagna. The solid pieces will provide a great base for gluing extra supports on.

-Any/all support beams should be made out of ritagoni. The tubular design gives the best moment of inertia (resistance to bending) for the mass.

-If possible, make the bridge bend upwards so the middle is the highest part on the bridge. This will make the structure fail due to brittleness instead of the huge bending moment resulting from a bridge bending downwards.

-Any glue used in the process should be epoxy. Normal white glue just isn't strong enough, and hot glue from a glue gun might be too heavy.

 

[Garret]

Here's an old pasta bridge design I made a long time ago with Photoshop.
http://img96.exs.cx/img96/9376/PastaBridge.jpg

Regards,
Garret

 

[Namic56]

Shawn, why would I make it bend upwards to make it brittle? does it make it support the weight longer, or does it just make it fail in a different way.

Garrett, Have you actually tested your design?

 

[Garret]

Garrett, Have you actually tested your design?

Well the picture I supplied you with is just a rough sketch to get ideas going. The detailed design was actually really good. If I recall correctly we supported 15 kilograms. We found after that we should have spent more time looking at the angles and how to spread the stress out better.

Regards,
Garret