The current influence of Gustave Eiffel on bridges

Gustave Eiffel, an engineer and architect of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, became famous with his works achievements, like the viaduct of Garabit, and of course the Eiffel Tower. The techniques he used in order to build his bridges are still used nowadays.

            The Garabit viaduct was his first important work: he employed a technique based on iron arches with pylons which opens out at their base:

All modern bridges have got commun characteristics: Eiffel’s model for pylons construction, and his fetish material: steel. It’s EIFFAGE firm; whose members consider themselves as G. Eiffel’s spirituals sons, which wanted to make steel the main material of nowadays constructions for enormous sites, like the viaduct of Millau, the higher cable-stayed bridge in the world, where steel predominates, and it’s also a modern bridge, designed by Norman Foster, whose characteristics are very rare: 343 meters high, 2.46 km long, 85000 m3 of concrete used, and his weight: 36000 tons. This bridge opened on Tuesday, 14^th December 2004.

This viaduct , crossing the Tarn ,was built by Norman Foster ;it’s so high that the Eiffel Tower could be put under it at its highest point .Gustave Eiffel also studied aeronautical phenomena .Here is what he found out :when a wing moves in the air ,it is resisted by thrust and the streak ,whose resultant is R ,the aeronautical force .The More the center of  thrust moves near the edge of attack B ,the more risks there are of stalling ;which can be expressed in this drawing.

  The bridge of Normandie, the highest cable-stayed bridge of the world, was built in 1995 necessitated much aeronautical works, which could not have been carried out without Gustave Eiffel's researches. To limit the wind’s holds, the bridges’s metallic road ways was built like reversed plane wings so that is brought down to the ground .