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Box Girder Bridge

Civil Engineering

A box girder bridge, also called a box section bridge, is a bridge whose main beams are girders shaped as a hollow box, typically rectangular or trapezoidal in cross-section and built from prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite of steel and reinforced concrete. Although a box girder bridge is normally a form of beam bridge, box girders are also used within cable-stayed and other bridge types, and the design is commonly chosen for highway flyovers and for the elevated structures of modern light rail systems. The source consulted names no single inventor or invention date for the design.

Facts
Partially Attested
Year
1925 1
Date documents the British Army's adoption of Major Gifford Martel's modular military Large Box Girder Bridge; the same article gives no single inventor or year for the general box girder structural principle used in civil bridges.
Significance
Box girder bridges became a popular choice during the 1960s road building expansion, and a series of box girder bridge collapses in that decade killed fifty one people and led the UK to form the Merrison Committee and fund new research into box girder behavior. 1
Connections

Associated With

Concrete, Materials

In Field

Source Box girder bridge, Wikipedia
Sources
1. Box girder bridge, Wikipedia
  • Development of steel box girders section
    The Martel bridge was adopted by the British Army in 1925 as the Large Box Girder Bridge.
  • Development of steel box girders section, Merrison Committee sentence
    Fifty-one people were killed in these failures, leading in the UK to the formation of the Merrison Committee and considerable investment in new research into steel box girder behaviour.
  • In Field: Civil Engineering, Categories
    Bridges by structural type
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