A Study of Various types of Bridges in India with Historical Perspective | Original Article

ABSTRACT:

Bridges are structures which are built over an obstacle like valley, water or road with the purpose of making a transportation route. Bridges lay horizontally between some types of supports. These are used for transportation of vertical loads. The important aspect of a bridge is that it does not provide any kind of hindrance to the route beneath it. In the beginning bridges were very simple structures that were built from easily accessible natural resources- wooden logs, stone and dirt. Because of that, they had ability only to span very close distances, and their structural integrity was not high because mortar was not yet invented and rain slowly but constantly dissolved dirt fillings of the bridge. Evolution also came in the field of Bridge construction. They can be classified in many ways, such as on the basis of the construction material used, the style, or the mechanism for holding weight, etc. However, they are most commonly differentiated on the basis of their mechanism for bearing weight. The present paper is an attempt to study the various types of bridges in India namely cantilever bridges, arched bridges, extradosed bridges and cable-styled bridges and their history.