The Golden Gate Bridge

 The Golden Gate Bridge is a famous suspension bridge in California and the United States, which is connects the "Golden Gate" city of San Francisco with Marin County, heading north, and extends across the narrow corridor, which carries the same name as the bridge, which connects San Francisco Bay in the Pacific Ocean.

 The only method of transit to and from each of the two sides before the construction of the bridge is via boats and it was very expensive, also there were claims from residents of the both cities about the problem, so there was an urgent need to establish the bridge to connect the both side of the cities.

In 1933 during the era of President Franklin Dalno Roosevelt the project began with funding from the Department of Labour and projects in the United States by the architect Josef Straus. Joseph Strauss, a German-born engineer was living in Chicago, and his dream was to build a great bridge, so he start planned for it in 1921 until he got the chance to build it in 1933.

 Of course constructing a first suspension bridge in the world is the most difficult, so he surrounded himself with a team of specialists and a number of the most famous architects and civil engineers to help him and to compensate for the relative lack of experience in the field of construction of suspension bridges.

 And because the base must be placed in the depths of the Golden Gate Strait of water on a rock suited and flat, so the intervention of the divers was important to blow up the base rock at a depth of 30 meters with a very serious work because of disabling currents flowing across the strait and this was a first stage of the project. Straus faced many difficulties in the beginning, but he conquered all challenges.

The second stage was to construct two towers of a 227 meter hight, so as with any major construction, necessitated the construction of a Bridge to use very large amounts of concrete to ensure a solid foundation of the structure.

After they infilled underwater and built pillars to support the claim towers casting 139 160 cubic meters of concrete and 99 400 tones for the construction of the pier and set the connection that allows the building tower. After the south, which necessitated ways to get to the bridge, in turn, use 21,800 cubic meters of concrete?

The main component of the Golden Gate Bridge is steel especially the towers, which brought from the east coast of the United States. Were manufactured in steel mills Petranton (New Jersey), Maryland, and three other factories in Pennsylvania steel products for transportation by rail to Philadelphia.

And the use of more than seventy-five thousand tons of steel in the construction of the bridge 40 ,280 tons were used to accomplish the major constellations, and summoned the structure of the bridge commentator 21.772 tons. In addition 3,991 tons were used for the foundations and 9,250 tons for various access roads to the bridge.

 For the final finishing the bridge is dyed in orange, because that enhances the bridge in fog, and that is one of the most distinctive features of the bridge.  And the bridge fixed with small lamps with low-pressure sodium vapor, where light conditions characterized by Orange and these bulbs were one of the highlights of the advanced technology at the time. The project took four years, of construction work and officially ended in 1937 at an estimated cost it 35 million $ at that time.

The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest and the maximum capacity suspension bridge in the world until 1964, with the total length of 1,970 meters and a width of 30 meters, with six trails open to traffic and pedestrian paths on each side.

 The bridge today is the most famous tourist attraction in San Francisco and one of its symbols and according to the classification of the American Society of Civil Engineers, this work of art is a one of the seven wonders of the modern world and mentions it in the travel guide “may be the most beautiful, but it is the most photographed bridge in the world”. Bridge was and still an architectural masterpiece in the world.

            References:

Golden Gate Bridge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2006, April 13). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved April 25, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge

Golden Gate Transportation District. (2011, August 23). Golden Gate Transportation District. Retrieved April 25, 2013, from http://goldengate.org/

Stiavetti, S. (2010, July 8). Importance of the Golden Gate Bridge. Bay Area Guide | San Francisco Guides . Retrieved April 25, 2013, from http://sanfrancisco.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Importance_of_the_Golden_Gate_Bridge

Rosenbaum, D. (2012, June 12). Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco California Visitor Information | San Francisco.Travel. San Francisco Travel Guide: Things to Do, Hotels, Events, Restaurants, Shop. Retrieved April 25, 2013, from http://www.sanfrancisco.travel/icons/Golden-Gate-Bridge.html

Ezproxy Login. (1997, October 10). Ezproxy Login. Retrieved April 27, 2013, from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.hct.ac.ae/science/docview/228498061/13DB1F2EC7D10BB7116/1?accountid=1215 (HCT Databases).

           

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