Steel bridge team prepares for regional competition

Submitted by Pauline Fusco
Phone: (907) 474-7816
03/29/05

Adam Caswell puts a tack weld on a joint of UAF's steel bridge entry.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks civil engineering steel bridge team is preparing to test their metal at this year’s Pacific Northwest regional competition at Montana Tech in Butte, Montana. The intercollegiate contest April 5-9 challenges student engineers to design and fabricate a bridge following a strict set of guidelines.

Civil and environmental engineering Professor Leroy Hulsey has been advising the steel bridge team at UAF for more than a decade. Students enrolled in his class during the spring semester earn credit for their participation. Although the criteria allow teams to contract out the construction of the bridge, the UAF team has both the equipment and skills to do their own welding and assembly.

The bridges are designed to span an imaginary river and hold a load of 2,500 pounds. Bridges are scored based on aesthetics, weight, assembly time and "deflection," or the amount of up and down movement. The rules are typically modified each year to keep the contest competitive.

The winner and the first runner-up in the regional competition are invited to compete at the national competition, which will take place at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, May 27?28, 2005. The UAF team has competed at the national level a number of times. Their impressive success rate includes first place in 1993, fourth in 1995, tying for first in 1996 and placing sixth in 2003.

The members of this years steel bridge team are Pauline Fusco, Ben Townsend, Curtis Nordin, Josh Chaney, Brian Sweeney, Brian Johnson, Garrett Thatcher, Adam Caswell, Liz Binnell, Wilhelm Muench, Alicia Braham, Yevette Lancaster, Lindsey Dewhurst, Roy Craft, Robert Casey and Marty Woodrow.

The competition is sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction and co-sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

CONTACT: Pauline Fusco at fspef@uaf.edu, or Leroy Hulsey, team advisor at (907) 474-7816 or at ffjlh@uaf.edu for more information.