Spaghetti Bridge Design Project

By Dan Berry Dru Gillaspie Robbie Schroeder

MECH 211 - Statics Department of Mechanical Engineering Washington State University - Vancouver Vancouver, WA

December 4, 2013

Table of Contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Objectives ..................................................................................................................................................... 3 Design Procedure .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Results ........................................................................................................................................................... 5 Recommendations ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................... 6 References .................................................................................................................................................... 7 Appendix A: Drawings ................................................................................................................................... 8 1. 2. 3. 4. Side View .............................................................................................................................................. 9 Top and Bottom .................................................................................................................................. 10 MD Solids Dimensions Page 11 ........................................................................................................ 11 MD Solids Force Calculations Page 12 ............................................................................................. 12

Appendix B: Calculations............................................................................................................................. 13 1. Hand Calculations 14

Appendix C: Tables ...................................................................................................................................... 15 1. 2. Failure Test of Individual Members .................................................................................................... 15 Member Table ..................................................................................................................................... 15

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Abstract
The overall goal of this project was to be able to work as a team in order to successfully design, build and test a bridge. This bridge was to be made using only the supplied spaghetti and epoxy, and had to span a distance of 15 inches. It had to be as light as possible, while still supporting as much weight as possible before it failed, and adhere to all other restrictions. By using the concepts that we have learned in this class, we would build our bridge using trusses. Upon completion, the bridge would be subjected to an increasing load until it reached its failure point. When we were designing the bridge, we took queues from several existing bridges. The design that we chose was a variation upon the Baltimore truss design. This design was chosen because it has a minimal number of trusses, yet is capable of holding a heavy load quite effectively. We also used design features from a Warren-style truss, which consists of several equilateral triangles to distribute the load evenly across the span. In our initial testing of the bridge, we did not test to failure. However, we did test the amount of bending that each member could withstand before it would snap, causing a failure in the structure, and then used that data to make an educated guess on the potential load. We theorized that our bridge could withstand 10 times its weight, or 400 grams. The final part of this project was to test the bridge to failure in class. Our finished bridge had a total of 72 trusses, weighed 40 grams and had final dimensions of 15.5Lx6.0Wx6.83H. When we gradually increased the load to our bridge, we were able to achieve a maximum load of 523 grams to the roadway before the bridge failed catastrophically (the bridge shattered into several pieces). This gave us a total load-to-weight ratio of 13.1:1. This surpassed our initial estimates.

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Introduction
Throughout the semester we have been learning a variety of topics related to the mechanics of bodies at rest. Beginning with the basics of statics in particles we steadily learned more and more about statics building up to analysis of structures and calculating the moments of inertia in objects, among several other topics. All of these are now culminating in the Spaghetti Bridge Design Project. The purpose of this paper is to document the final project for MECH 211 Statics, and demonstrate our ability to design and construct a structure using the skills that we have learned throughout this course. The structure will adhere to a variety of requirements that will be discussed in further detail, and the completed structure will be put to test in a competition among all of the other participating groups. The results of this competition will be analyzed in the end to measure the efficacy of our design compared to the others, and our recommendations to improve the design will be listed as well.

Objectives
The objectives of this project are quite simple. We are being asked to build a bridge that will span a gap and hold a concentrated load in the center. The bridge must be as light as possible, and hold as much weight as possible. The ratio of the two measurements will determine the success of our design. We began with an initial design on paper and used the program MD solids to investigate the design. We calculated all of the loads on the structure to ensure that it would hold weight. In the design, we are being held to a variety of restrictions for size and how it may be constructed. The bridge must be able to span a gap of 15 inches and may be no more than 20 inches. It must also be between six to eight inches in height and width. Finally, the total number of members was to be close to 48 (within a reasonable margin if going above). The construction must consist of single strands of spaghetti held together with epoxy. It also needed to be a structure with open ends, and finally needed to have a surface on which to place weight for testing on either the top or bottom of the structure.

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Design Procedure
For the design of this bridge, our group preformed research into a variety of common truss bridge designs before drawing our own design for our bridge. We found several truss designs that we thought would make great structures for our bridge, but several of them would require too many members to fulfill the requirements of this project. We finally settled on what was a slightly modified Baltimore truss design. This design was chosen as it is regarded as a simple, yet very strong design. Normally the Baltimore truss has additional vertical members to help brace it from buckling, however if these would have been included in our design, it would have significantly increased the total number of members. We ultimately decided to forgo some of these vertical members as we felt they would have less impact on what we felt were our weakest members, the spaghetti strands in compression across the top of the design. We also implemented concepts from the Warren truss when designing by using equilateral triangles across the span. This was done to help equally distribute the load as much as possible across the strands of spaghetti. There is one possible flaw with this design however. It isnt as efficient with concentrated loads as is prescribed within this project, however it is fantastic with distributed loads. From the description of how the loads will be placed on our bridges in competition, we dont believe this will have a large impact. The final design of the bridge can be seen in the drawings found in Appendix A of this paper. For the construction of the bridge, we began my calculating all of the lengths of the members being used and cut them to length plus approximately an additional 1/8 inch to account for the space required for the joints to be connected. Once all of the members were cut, we began assembly by creating a jig from cardboard that set strands of spaghetti at 60 degrees to form our main equilateral triangles. The ends of the spaghetti were placed off the edge of the cardboard and floated freely so that the epoxy would only be placed on the ends of the spaghetti and not stick to the cardboard. Once the primary truss was completes, we than began placing the central members again using a similar jig that left the ends out in free space to avoid having the epoxy adhere to anything other than the spaghetti. Once the joints of the two sides were set, we placed both of them upright and parallel to each other and began placing the members across the top. As soon as they were set, we flipped the bridge and did the same for the members on the bottom. 4|Page

Once the entire bridge was complete, we once again went over every joint and place some more epoxy on them to eliminate any bad joints before we began testing the design. When it came to testing our bridge, we were hesitant to test it to failure do to the amount of time and effort that were used in its initial construction, so we devised a method of approximation to test with. We started with some very light weights to see where we were experiencing any flexing in the model. We looked for flexing because we knew that the spaghetti would fail in compression well before failing in tension. Once we identified where the bending was occurring, we cut individual strands of spaghetti to the lengths of the bending members (or sets of members) and tested those to failure while measuring the approximate distance of travel when it was bending (Appendix C). We then took the collected data and used it to approximate the bending distance of what we thought would be 50% of the load before failure. We again placed weight on the bridge and watched these points until they hit the 50% mark and removed the weight. The results of this testing can be seen in the appendix. When we preformed this test we successfully held approximately 210 grams. This leads us to our prediction of approximately 400 grams of total weight before the bridge fails. This is a 10:1 load to weight ratio. In the end, we believe that our bridge will initially fail along one of the side members of the primary triangles, such as the 8 inch total members between A and K. This is where the majority of our flex is seen, and the least supported against bending towards the truss on the other side of the bridge.

Results
Upon the completion of the competition we found that our bridge had surpassed our initial expectations and was able to hold 523 grams before failing. When it weighed in officially at 40 grams, this represents a 13.1:1 load to weight ratio. With this result, we consider this project to be a success. While we were not able to witness all of the tests, for the few that we did our bridge had a much higher load than many of the others while falling in a similar weight range. This indicates that our design was sound. The failure of our bridge appeared to happen at where we predicted, however it was rather fast and several members were broken as it collapsed. It did however occur at the side of the truss as we predicted and those members predicted were displaying the most amount of strain while testing. Overall, we feel that our predictions were very close to the final results.

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Recommendations
One of our original designs contained several vertical members on the lower half of the bridge. These were in place to increase rigidity of the structure. These beams would be placed at the halfway point between all of the bottom members and attach straight above them at joints G, H, I, and J. These were removed to help reduce the total number of members, however there was another group that actually used this design and their bridge was able to hold a considerably larger amount of weight. If the design requirements were to be expanded to allow more members, we would have left these in place.

Conclusions
The end results of this project were quite positive. We accomplished all of our initial goals in our design and were able to successfully implement our design thought our initial testing and through the final competition. All of this was done effectively as a team, which we believe is reflected in the quality of our work. Our final design was within the specifications of the project, and achieved a great load to weight ratio. This also demonstrates our teams solid grasp on the topics we learned throughout the semester, as all of our calculations were accurate, and we were able to make a variety of predictions as to what would happen. We are very pleased with the end results.

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References
Calvert, J. B. "Evolution of Trusses." Evolution of Trusses. N.p., 27 Feb. 2004. Web. 04 Dec. 2013. <http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/tech/truss.htm>. Cridlebaugh, Bruce S. "Bridge Basics - A Spotter's Guide to Bridge Design." Bridge Basics - A Spotter's Guide to Bridge Design. N.p., 03 June 2008. Web. 04 Dec. 2013. <http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm>. Oon, Garrett. "Model Bridge Design." Model Bridge Design Warren Truss Comments. Model Bridge Design, 14 Mar. 2013. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://www.garrettsbridges.com/design/warren-truss/>.

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Appendix A: Drawings

1. Side View Page 9

The side view of our bridge design showing the overall dimensions.

2. Top and Bottom Page 10

The top and bottom views of our bridge design showing the overall dimensions.

3. MD Solids Dimensions Page 11

Our dimensions of our design set up in the program MD Solids. Due to a restriction in the software, we were not able to set absolute angles of 60 degrees for the triangles in the software, so all measurements are approximate.

4. MD Solids Force Calculations Page 12

The calculations of our design produced by the program MD Solids. Again, due to a restriction in the software, we were not able to set absolute angles of 60 degrees for the triangles in the software, so all measurements are approximate, and the calculations were used only in the initial investigation of our design. All final calculations can be found in appendix B.

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Appendix B: Calculations
In our calculations, it should be noted that because the structure is mirrored it was only necessary to calculate one half of the structure as the other side would be identical. Several of the members are also zero-force members requiring no calculations. For a detailed list of the individual members, please see the member table in appendix C.

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Appendix C: Tables 1. Failure Test of Individual Members

Length of Member 4 Inches 6.93 inches 8 inches Distance to failure 0.24 Inches 1.30 Inches 1.42 Inches Number of members in design 12 6 4

2. Member Table
Member Name FAB FBC FCD FDE FAG FGK FKL FLM FMJ FJE FBG FBK FBH FKH FCH FCL FCI FIM FDI FDM FDJ Member Length 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 6.93 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 6.93 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 4 Inches 6.93 Inches 4 Inches Forces (in relation to w) 0.298w T 0.298w T 0.298w T 0.298w T 0.577w C 0.577w C 0.577w C 0.577w C 0.577w C 0.577w C 0w 0w 0w 0.577w T 0.577w T 0w 0.577w T 0.577w T 0w 0w 0w

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