College Students Compete in Steel Bridge Building Demo
09/29/2011 - The Federal Highway Administration recently invited teams of students from Virginia Tech and Howard University to compete in a steel bridge building demonstration at DOT headquarters in honor of Steel Day.
The Federal Highway Administration recently invited teams of students from Virginia Tech and Howard University to compete in a steel bridge building demonstration at DOT headquarters in honor of Steel Day.
The National Student Steel Bridge Competition, sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), has been held annually since 1987. The competition has grown to 200 teams competing in preliminary contests, and 48 qualifying for last May's National Championships.
FHWA Administrator Victor Mendez, President Elect Andrew Hermann from ASCE, Brian Raff from the National Steel Bridge Alliance (NSBA), a department of AISC, and Lawrence Cavanaugh, President of the Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI, spoke about the role of innovative technologies in bridge building.
“We certainly need all the bright, creative minds we can get to help build our 21st century transportation system, especially people who excel in science and math,” said Mendez.
Kandace Kea, Rachel Anderson, Max Jordan Nguemeni, Emmanuel Mendiola, Canisha Seymore, Khalid Romain, and Cameron Sanders from Howard showed their skills during the demonstration, with their bridge relying on bolts. The Virginia Tech team, including Brett Keyes and Preston Pionk, had engineered special “dovetail” joints that fit into each other without the need for bolts. This approach is said to emulate the Federal Highway Administration's Prefabricated Bridge Elements and Systems program.
Many of the visiting students were upperclassmen at their respective universities. Raff said, “The students with us today could be our transportation and infrastructure decision makers of tomorrow.”
