bridge unit (vocab)

force

any action that tends to maintain or alter the position of a structure (loads).

compression

a force which acts to compress or shorten the thing it is acting on.

tension

a force which acts to expand or lengthen the thing it is acting on.

shear

this is compression gone wrong. This is when things begin to break.

gravity

this is the natural force that pulls things to the ground.

span

the distance between two bridge supports, whether they are columns, towers or the wall of a canyon.

load

is a force a bridge must overcome to stay standing.

displacement

this is the ability of a bridge to spread the forces out evenly over the whole bridge, so that no one spot has to bear the brunt of the concentrated force.

stable

the bridge has the ability to resist a collapse. And be able to carry a realistic load without collapsing or deforming significantly.