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Bascule Bridges
A bascule bridge (also referred to as a drawbridge or a lifting bridge) is a moveable bridge with a counterweight that continuously balances a span, or leaf, throughout its upward swing to provide clearance for boat traffic. It may be single- or double-leafed. The name comes from the French term for balance scale, which employs the same principle. Bascule bridges are the most common type of movable span because they open quickly and require relatively little energy to operate, while providing the possibility for unlimited vertical clearance for marine traffic. History Bascule bridges have been in use since ancient times, but until the adoption of steam power in the 1850s, very long, heavy spans could not be moved quickly enough for practical application. Types There are three types of bascule bridge and the counterweights to the span may be located above or below the bridge deck. The fixed-trunnion (sometimes a "Chicago" bascule) rotates around a large axle that raises t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wells Street Bridge (Chicago)
The Wells Street Bridge is a bascule bridge over the Chicago River, in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States, which was built in 1922. Standing east of the Franklin Street Bridge and southeast of the Merchandise Mart, the bridge connects the River North, Chicago, Near North Side with "Chicago Loop, The Loop". The bridge is double-decked, the lower deck carrying three lanes of traffic south over the river with sidewalks on both sides of Wells Street (Chicago), the street. The upper deck serves as a bridge for the Chicago Transit Authority's Brown Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Brown and Purple Line (Chicago Transit Authority), Purple lines. bridge tender's house, Bridge tenders' houses for controlling the bridge are on the northwest and southeast corners of the bridge. History The bridge was constructed during the first term of William Hale Thompson. The Chicago Plan Commission and Chicago Art Commission provided design input to architect E. H. Bennett. The bridge was c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackknife Bascule Bridge
The Jackknife (or Jack-knife) Bascule Bridge is a bascule bridge that spans the Kaministiquia River at Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, to link the city to Mission Island, one of two islands in the Kaministiquia River delta. The bridge was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ... between August 1910 and April 1913. The contractor for the abutments and piers was Alexander Charles Stewart (1867–1944). The bridge had two decks, the lower deck for trains and the upper deck for vehicular road traffic. The vehicular portion of the bridge was replaced by the Island Drive Bridge, which connects neighbouring McKellar Island to the mainland, in 2003. The connecting roadways and upper deck of the Jackknife Bridge were dismantled in 2004, but th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnson Street Bridge
The Johnson Street Bridge is a bascule bridge spanning the Victoria Harbour (British Columbia), Victoria Harbour in Victoria, British Columbia, Victoria, British Columbia. Four known bridges have spanned the narrows between Victoria's Inner Harbour and Upper Harbour, connecting Johnson Street on the east shore with Esquimalt Road on the west shore. The current bridge is Canada's largest single-leaf bascule bridge. It carries three vehicular traffic lanes, with a pedestrian walkway on its south side, and a multi-use pathway on its north side. The bridge is lit with blue LED lighting as a homage to its predecessor, which was referred to as the "Blue Bridge". History The first bridge connecting the west and east shores of the Victoria Harbour was a low wagon bridge, completed in 1855. The bridge blocked marine traffic, and was ultimately dismantled seven years later in 1862 and replaced with a ferry service. A second bridge, for rail and foot traffic only, was constructed in 1888 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double-beam Drawbridge
A double-beam drawbridge, seesaw or folding bridge is a movable bridge . It opens by rotation about a horizontal axis parallel to the water. Historically, the double-beam drawbridge has emerged from the drawbridge. A (double-beam) drawbridge has counterweights, so that operating requires less energy compared with such a bridge without counterweights. As a bascule bridge, the (double-beam) drawbridge has multiple hinges. The road surface is connected to the bottom hinge close to street level. Above the hinge is a portal. A rotating arm, the balance, is attached to the portal high up off the ground. On one side of the balance hangs the counterweight, the balance box, on the other side, the arm is hinged to two vertical beams that are on the other end hinged to the tip of the bridge deck. So when the bridge goes up, the balance and the bridge deck turn approximately parallel. The movement of the combined beams have the characteristics of a four-bar linkage. The drawback of a tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pegasus Bridge
Pegasus Bridge, originally called the Bénouville Bridge after the neighbouring village, is a road crossing over the Caen Canal, between Caen and Ouistreham in Normandy. The original bridge, built in 1934, is now a war memorial and is the centrepiece of the Memorial Pegasus museum at nearby Ranville. It was replaced in 1994 by a modern design which, like the old one, is a bascule bridge. On 6 June 1944, during the Second World War, the bridge was, along with the nearby Ranville Bridge over the Orne River (another road crossing, later renamed Horsa Bridge), the objective of members of D Company, 2nd (Airborne) Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, a glider-borne force who were part of the 6th Airlanding Brigade of the 6th Airborne Division during Operation Tonga in the opening minutes of the Allied invasion of Normandy. Under the command of Major John Howard, D Company was to land close by the bridges in six Airspeed Horsa gliders and, in a '' co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Ford Bridge
The Henry Ford Bridge, also known as the Badger Avenue Bridge, is a bridge located in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, Southern California. It carries the Pacific Harbor Line railroad across the Cerritos Channel to Terminal Island from San Pedro, Los Angeles, San Pedro, to serve the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach. It was built to accommodate operations at the Ford Long Beach Assembly plant which opened in 1930 and was closed in 1959. The original 1924 bascule bridge was dismantled and replaced in 1996 by a vertical-lift bridge. Bascule bridge The contract for the bascule bridge was placed by The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners in 1922. The bridge was designed by Joseph Baermann Strauss and fabricated by the American Bridge Company. It was formed of a pair of trunnion bascule leaves which formed a one span Warren truss, Warren through-truss. There were two tower spans and two timber approaches. See also *Commodore Schuyler F. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abutment
An abutment is the substructure at the ends of a bridge span or dam supporting its superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end that provide vertical and lateral support for the span, as well as acting as retaining walls to resist lateral movement of the earthen fill of the bridge approach. Multi-span bridges require piers to support ends of spans unsupported by abutments. Dam abutments are generally the sides of a valley or gorge, but may be artificial in order to support arch dams such as Kurobe Dam in Japan. The civil engineering term may also refer to the structure supporting one side of an arch, or masonry used to resist the lateral forces of a vault.Pevsner, N. (1970) ''Cornwall''; 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin; p. 245 The impost or abacus An abacus ( abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a hand-operated calculating tool which was used from ancient times in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, until the adoptio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Library Of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law of the United States, copyright law through the United States Copyright Office, and it houses the Congressional Research Service. Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the oldest Cultural policy of the United States, federal cultural institution in the United States. It is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill, adjacent to the United States Capitol, along with the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia, and additional storage facilities at Fort Meade, Fort George G. Meade and Cabin Branch in Hyattsville, Maryland. The library's functions are overseen by the librarian of Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the architect of the Capitol. The LOC is one of the List of largest libraries, largest libra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway Bridge (Portland, Oregon)
The Broadway Bridge is a Rall-type bascule bridge spanning the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, United States, built in 1913. It was Portland's first bascule bridge, and it continues to hold the distinction of being the longest span of its bascule design type in the world. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012. History and description The bridge was anticipated to be the world's longest bascule bridge and there was competition between the Strauss, Scherzer, and Rall bascule design patent holders. The "Rall" was selected based on cost. Ralph Modjeski designed the structure, which opened on April 22, 1913, at a cost of $1.6 million. It was the world's longest double-leaf bascule bridge, of any bascule type, at the time. The bridge's name derives from the street it carries, Broadway (Portland, Oregon), Broadway, but at the time of the bridge's construction that street name was in use only east of the river. The westside por ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Google Patents
Google Patents is a search engine from Google that indexes patents and patent applications. Contents Google Patents indexes more than 87 million patents and patent applications with full text from 17 patent offices, including: * United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), * European Patent Office (EPO), * China's National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), * Japan Patent Office (JPO), * Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), * World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), * Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt (DPMA), * Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), * Rospatent, * Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom), * National Institute of Industrial Property (France), * the Netherlands Patent Office, * offices of Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Luxembourg. These documents include the entire collection of granted patents and published patent applications from each database (which belong to the public domain). US patent documents date bac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Patent And Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency in the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia, after a 2005 move from the Crystal City, Virginia, Crystal City area of neighboring Arlington County, Virginia, Arlington, Virginia. The USPTO is "unique among federal agencies because it operates solely on fees collected by its users, and not on taxpayer dollars". Its "operating structure is like a business in that it receives requests for services—applications for patents and trademark registrations—and charges fees projected to cover the cost of performing the services [it] provide[s]". The office is headed by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and directo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Donald Scherzer
William Donald Scherzer (January 27, 1858 – July 20, 1893) was an American engineer and inventor who invented the rolling lift bridge. Early life Scherzer's parents were William and Wilhelmina Scherzer, who immigrated from Germany in 1847. Scherzer was born in Peru, Illinois, on January 27, 1858, as the second son in a family of three sons and one daughter. Mid-life Scherzer received his primary education in public schools. He exhibited talent in art and mathematics, where his father had exhibited talent in music and art. After elementary school Scherzer entered the private schooling of Professor Eggers at the age of 15 for college prep courses. He later then took up civil engineering at the Polytechnicum college in Zurich, Switzerland when he was eighteen years old. There he was at the top of his class. Scherzer was considered a competitor both in play and studies by all that knew him closely. He graduated from the Zurich engineering college in 1880. Career Sche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
