University of California, Berkeley Engineers help poor Cambodian infrastructure
- From: ewbtonlesap@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 21:50:34 -0700 (PDT)
The Engineers Without Borders organization recently held a competition
for Universities around the globe, in relation to assisting Cambodians
of the Tonle Sap Lake/River area. One of such entries was entitled the
“Floating Bridge” which has stirred up a lot of excitement.
More info: http://www.myspace.com/ewbcambodia
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About the bridge:
The Floating Bridge - what we have done, and I think is quite amazing,
is really, just start over.
The new Floating Bridge is quite an engineering achievement. It really
represents a complete revolution in how bridges are made.
Traditionally, Bridges are made from one large part; or multitudes of
smaller parts, that are made into one rigid unit-body. But the problem
is, when you do have one unit-body, is when you add size and weight,
what you really have, is an unadjustable, unscaleable, and inflexible
section. When you bring in environmental hazards such as extreme
droughts and flooding periods, what you begin to notice is, there is
there literally no defence to opportunity of failure. The huge
breakthrough that we had with the Floating Bridge was to replace the
whole unit-body with many parts, that was adaptable to the lifestyle
and nature of the bridges that are required in Cambodia. We figured
out a way of making the bridge fundamentally stronger, cheaper, more
robust, and a degree of fit and finish that we have never even dreamed
of before. In short, you could say that this could literally
revolutionize Cambodia.
Wood was the ideal choice for this product because it provides us the
water-resistance and lightness required for moving around Cambodia;
great weight-to-strength ratio, also provides each Cambodian sub-
community some nice options from a finishing perspective. The
beginning of the Bridge body starts with a solid block of wood. It is
cut in half, and supported at each end by a stainless steel bar,
screwed on nuts and bolts that are just the correct size. Too small a
screw would not provide enough strength to hold the steel bar with the
Solid wood body, and too large a screw would reduce the strength of
the stainless steel bar. In other words, we had to make thousands of
tests to come up with the optimal screw-board-ratio, so the same screw
would be useable anywhere to reduce opportunity to manufacturing
error. You could literally say, we were tough, right down to the nut
and bolt. We then attach a bracket around recycled plastic drums, to
attach the buoyancy device to our bridge, thus causing flotation. The
simplicity of the manufacturing means we can achieve an assembly
method that we can get right every single time.
One of the things I'm the most proud of is the environmental story.
We've achieved a design that is EP Gold-compliant. It starts not just
from the concept, but all the way through selection of components (how
they are engineered, how they're packaged and shipped), and at the end
of the day, how they are recycled. We set ourselves on a really
ambitious plan to use materials that were native to Cambodia, as so to
prevent introduction of foreign materials into the country. By
packaging our new Floating bridges in smaller sections, we're able to
create more dense pallets of materials, we're able to take less plane
space - less fuel, and have a smaller carbon footprint as a result.
We've chosen both materials and processes that are the best in the
industry from an environmental perspective.
When you start using it, when you start walking on our bridges, when
you and your mates take a personal stroll on our bridges; it becomes
so much more than just a collection of parts - we've refined and
refined every detail, in the service of the user, just to get rid of
complexity. If it doesn't need to be there - it's not there. I mean, I
don't know how we could make something any more essential, any
simpler, than the new Floating bridge.
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Team members:
Jeremy Shum
Carmen Rene Tkalec
Jordan Caleb Ward
Leigh Patrick Costello
Martin Steven Sellar
Alden Pascua
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Influences:
University of California at Berkeley
University of California at Los Angeles
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
Harvard University
.
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