A continuous truss bridge is a truss bridge that extends without hinges or joints across three or more supports. A continuous truss bridge may use less material than a series of simple trusses because a continuous truss distributes live loads across all the spans; in a series of simple trusses, each truss must be capable of supporting the entire load.
6-584: The Monaca–East Rochester Bridge is a steel through continuous truss bridge which crosses the Ohio River between Monaca, Pennsylvania and East Rochester, Pennsylvania . It opened in 1959 and was tolled until 1973. By the late 1970s, the segment of PA 51 from 17th Street in Monaca to its concurrency with PA 18 across the Monaca-Rochester Bridge was moved to its current alignment across
12-561: The Golden Gate Bridge was initially constructed as a series of five simple truss spans. In 2001, a seismic retrofit project connected the five spans into a single continuous truss bridge. Continuous truss bridges started to be constructed in Europe during the second half of the 19th century. Although the advantages of continuous bridges were known, three main engineering challenges slowed their widespread adoption: However, it
18-590: The Monaca–East Rochester Bridge and its brief concurrencies with PA 65 and PA 68. This article about a bridge in Pennsylvania is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Continuous truss bridge Although some continuous truss bridges resemble cantilever bridges and may be constructed using cantilever techniques, there are essential differences between the two forms. Cantilever bridges need not connect rigidly mid-span, as
24-422: The cantilever arms are self-supporting. Although some cantilever bridges appear continuous due to decorative trusswork at the joints, these bridges will remain standing if the connections between the cantilevers are broken or the suspended span (if any) is removed. Conversely, continuous truss bridges rely on rigid truss connections throughout the structure for stability. Severing a continuous truss mid-span endangers
30-462: The structure, as exemplified by the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March 2024. However, continuous truss bridges do not experience the tipping forces that a cantilever bridge must resist because the main span of a continuous truss bridge is supported at both ends. It is possible to convert a series of simple truss spans into a continuous truss. For example, the northern approach to
36-879: Was possible to avoid these issues to a certain extent through careful design. The early European bridges were usually lattice trusses with three to five spans. An example was the Boyne Viaduct , built in 1855 in Drogheda , Ireland . The first continuous truss bridge in North America was the Lachine Bridge in Montreal , built in 1888, followed by the Sciotoville Bridge in 1916 and the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Bridge in 1918. Since
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