Bridge Engineering is a one aspect of civil engineering.

Also, it is one of the structures

that helps our society in different aspects. Bridges can be of different materials, such as concrete,
steel and timber, but also of different trusses, arches, cable-stayed and suspension bridges. As a
civil engineering student, we have taken the subject CE-501 Elective 1 or what they called
“Bridge Engineering” as part of our requirements in school.
During our first class in this subject, our professor, Sir Allen, discuss to us on what are
the main things that we must know in bridge engineering, from the history of bridge, wherein a
certain log fell into a stream and then one day, humans started to think that they can create
bridges in order to cross to the other side just like what civil engineer are doing right now. Also,
I have learned that the existence of bridge in our community provides an important role in our
modern life. As we move along and discuss more topics in bridge engineering, I have become
more curious and I would like to gain more knowledge about this subject. I had an absent in class
but I was able to catch up with the topics that I did not attended during my absences. Just like Sir
Allen told to us, we must know first the concepts of what we are solving in order to analyze it
properly especially during an actual situation.
Today’s bridges are designed and constructed to be stronger and bigger than before. Due
to high demand for public safety, major design and specification must be taken in designing and
building bridges. When designing a bridge, we need to find the most efficient bridge typology
and construction methods in order to make the design cost-competitive. Also, in order the bridge
to be safe, engineering design process must be considered. One of the most important step in
design process is to understand the problem. Or else, the hard work of the designers could result
to be a waste. When we are designing a bridge, if the engineering design team does not know the
function of the bridge, then their design could completely irrelevant to solve the problem. Next
one is determining the loads. Determining the potential loads or forces that are anticipated to act
on bridge is related to the bridge location and purpose. As a future engineer, we must always
consider the three main types of loads which are dead loads, live loads and environmental loads.
Another design process that must be considered is the load combination. During designing of
bridges, it is an important to know the step to combine the loads for a particular bridge. As
Engineers, we use different methods to accomplish this task. After an engineer determines the
highest or most critical load combination, they determine the size of the members. A bridge
member is any individual main piece of the bridge structure such as columns or beams.