April 02, 2001

WKU Engineering Students Ready To Defend Regional Championship In Steel Bridge Construction Competition

Bowling Green, Ky. - A group of Western Kentucky University engineering students will travel to Ohio State University this weekend with one goal in mind: defending their championship in a regional steel bridge building contest.

Again this year, Western will enter two bridges in the competition sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction and the American Society of Civil Engineers. Last year, in its first entry in the contest, Western won the Ohio Valley Regional and students brought home four other first-place awards.

Students have been working on the project since August designing bridges, making calculations, building prototypes, modifying designs and fabricating the final products.

"The two ideas that both teams developed were so good that there was no way to judge which one would outperform the other," said Greg Mills, civil engineering professor and team adviser. "We had the manpower to do it so we decided to build two bridges again."

"We're excited about begins so competitive with each other," said Jerod Kaufman, a senior from Kenai, Alaska. "We've made some significant strides compared to last year."

The teams have used last year's experience to help guide this year's work. Two team members, seniors Aaron Terry of Elizabethtown and Lucas Slavey of Somerset, participated in last year's regional and national competitions.

"One team is experienced so we try to tap into the knowledge from the other team," Kaufman said.

The bridges must be 23 feet long with a 13 feet span, 2 feet high with 1½ feet clearance and 3 ½ feet wide and must support 2,500 pounds.

Bridges are judged on aesthetics, stiffness, construction speed, weight, construction economy, structural efficiency and overall performance.

"You get a good viewpoint of how it would be to construct something you design," said Ryan Pregel, a senior from Gallatin, Tenn.

"What looks great on paper isn't necessarily the best way to go," Terry said.

That's why the design, calculations and fabrication are so important, Mills said. Western students do their own welding and construction, learn to work as a team and develop problem-solving skills, he said.

The teams' work area on the first floor of Science and Technology Hall includes test sections, prototypes and the finished products. Each team has spent more than 450 manhours working on the bridges from the design to construction phases.

When the bridge is assembled and the heavy load placed, "it's nice to see the practical engineering application work," Kaufman said.

The teams also have received assistance from Dr. Jack Rudolph in the Agriculture Department and support from Modern Welding, Stupp Bridge and Petty and Associates.

The regional competition is scheduled Saturday in Columbus, Ohio. Participating schools include Kentucky, Ohio State, Dayton, Cincinnati and Cleveland State. The national competition is scheduled for May 25-26 at Clemson University in South Carolina.

Other team members (all seniors) are Scott Tucker of Florence, Jason Collins of Columbia and Shawn Herman of Bowling Green.

For more information, contact Greg Mills at (270) 745-5850. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.