The final span in the new Interstate St. Anthony Falls 35W bridge in Minneapolis was to be put in the place this week just days before the one year anniversary on the Aug. 1 of the predecessor bridge’s tragic collapse into the Mississippi River. DN editor-in-chief John Dodge ventured back to the new bridge this week to shoot some photographs just as he did a week after former bridge collapsed last year, killing 13.
As it stands, the design build process will take 437 days with the new opening planned for Dec. 24 although there is talk of the grand opening taking place sooner. A rush was put on the $234 million bridge project to mitigate the estimated economic impact which the Minnesota DOT has pegged at $400,000 a day or $60 million until the new bridge is finished.
The new bridge, built by Flatiron Construction Corp., is put together with concrete piers and emphasizes aesthetics and safety. It will also have a sensor-based system to monitor the bridge throughout its lifetime. Below are some comparisons between the old and new bridge from the Minnesota DOT web site:
100-year life span
10 lanes of traffic, five in each direction—two lanes wider than the former bridge
189 feet wide—the previous bridge was 113 feet wide
13 foot wide right shoulders and 14 foot wide left shoulders, the previous bridge had no shoulders
Light Rail Transport-ready which may help accommodate future transportation needs
Almost every automaker has had to 'pick a side' when it comes to alternative fuel options and ways to divest from a reliance on gasoline. Fiat is looking to back compressed natural gas or liquid propane as an interim solution.
Plastic may not be the most beloved of materials to the more environmentally minded, but Plasti 2012 aimed to mold a different opinion of the material in people's minds.
The rare earth element market has become steadily more rational, and new sources coming online will continue to reduce costs. Still, it is unlikely that prices will drop to their former lows.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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