The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide (1.6 km) strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula—to Marin Count.Construction began on January 5, 1933.
Joseph Strauss served as chief engineer for the project, with Leon Moisseiff, Irving Morrow and Charles Ellis making significant contributions to its design. The two towers supporting the central span extend 700 feet into the sky and over 100 feet beneath the bay. The length of the suspension spans, including main and side spans, is 1.2 miles.Watch the video from Lesics for more info:
When the bridge opened in 1937, the weight of the bridge, along with its anchorages and approaches, was 894,500 tons.The roadway deck hangs from vertical suspenders that connect to the two main cables that run between the towers and the anchors on the end. The suspenders transfer vehicular forces and self-weight to the supporting cables that are anchored to towers and on to solid ground.
Advertisement
The towers likely started as a simple rock on each side of a valley; eventually engineers used massive stone or steel piers. The Golden Gate Bridge, for instance, is supported by one abutment on each end and the two towers, which are placed over foundations embedded in the seafloor.Strauss also innovated the use of movable safety netting beneath the men working, which saved many lives.Strauss’s initial design proposal (two double cantilever spans linked by a central suspension segment) was unacceptable from a visual standpoint.
