216

FRASIER’S FRIDAY FACT

Volume CCXVI

9/17/2021

Hello everyone,

Happy Friday! Welcome back to Frasier’s Friday Fact, where we cherish knowledge and continually build our mental database of useless information to use at parties.

We may be moving into the fall, but road construction season is still in full force. Take a look around and new sidewalks are being poured, new roads paved, and bridge decks replaced. Let’s stay with that last point for a minute - bridges. There are all sorts of bridges out there, from your old school arch bridges, to highway girder bridges, to bridges with cables.

Why not a quick fact on the cable-stayed bridge, a popular design? Some modern examples include the Zakim Bridge in Boston or the new Tappan Zee bridge in New York. How about this - the total width of each of these bridges are both 183 feet!

But despite the cable-stayed bridge being used all over the world today, it wasn’t always popular. An early cable-stayed bridge opened Nienburg, Germany in 1825, spanning the Saale River. The bridge was the first one to utilize a “fan” arrangement of stays. It opened in September, but it didn’t even last the year - it collapsed 3 months later in December 1825.

What happened? Well, that night, there was a celebration honoring the duke, and several hundred people congregated on the bridge, singing songs. Adding to the problem was the fact that people were clustered on parts of the bridge, so the load was not distributed evenly. According to reports at the time, some youths led everyone in swaying the bridge back and forth to the tune of the music. People reported hearing a loud snap, and then disaster struck - the bridge collapsed and killed 55 people.

The tragedy had an effect on bridge construction - no major cable-stayed bridges were constructed for another 125 years, until newer engineering techniques and building materials could better guarantee their safety.

Stay connected, my friends.

Fraish