Session B4
Paper # 6112
Disclaimer — This paper partially fulfills a writing requirement for first year (freshman) engineering students at the University
of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering. This paper is a student, not a professional, paper. This paper is based on
publicly available information and may not be provide complete analyses of all relevant data. If this paper is used for any
purpose other than these authors’ partial fulfillment of a writing requirement for first year (freshman) engineering students at
the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, the user does so at his or her own risk.
THE ADVANTAGES OF NITINOL USED FOR BRIDGE STRUCTURES
Cole Burden, ceb121@pitt.edu, Sanchez 10am, Hunter Stept, hds8@pitt.edu, Sanchez 10am
Revised Proposal - According to the federal Nation Bridge
Inventory, there are 607,380 bridges in the United States alone
[1]. The FNBI found that 65,605 of these bridges are classified
as structurally deficient and another 20,808 are being
classified as fracture critical [1]. This brings about an
immense discussion of ethical and scientific debate. Nickel
titanium, also referred to as Nitinol, is a metal alloy with
approximately equal atomic percentages when compounded
[2]. Nitinol is remarkable for exhibiting pseudo-elasticity and
shape memory properties. This unique metal can retain a
shape extraordinarily well. However, Nitinol can also slightly
mold to the shape necessary to accommodate for a structural
contortion. Shape memory alloys can undergo heavy strain
from the natural elements, which allows them to be extremely
useful to engineering. Compared to natural steel, nickel
titanium has 10-30 times the amount of strength, depending on
multiple variables that include temperature, Nitinol quantity,
and natural forces [3]. Nitinol is surely becoming an
invigorating opportunity for many engineering companies.
Civil engineers and chemical engineers, in particular, will find
this alloy tremendously helpful as a solution to bridges with
structural damages. Nitinol can surely be used to treat
fractures in bridges. The cost to build a bridge from scratch
with this metal is approximately 3% higher than traditional
materials [4]. However, the long term impact and durability of
Nitinol-made bridges over steel bridges, for example, is an
added 40% of a steel bridges life expectancy [4]. The goal of
this technical paper is to determine the effectiveness of nickel
titanium on its application to bridges susceptible to
earthquakes.
The following information will be laid out in several
sections. There will be a section specifically pertaining to the
Nitinol metal and how it is formed and processed. Following
this section will be an in depth description of how the
conventional bridge is made, and what modern days bridges
are made of. Next, the paper will move into the modern day
research and discussion about the use of different materials
for bridges that are structurally damaged. Relating to this
section will be another portion of the paper that discusses the
impact of Nitinol on bridges and the advantages of the alloy in
bridges vulnerable to natural disasters. Finally, the document
will be concluded with evidence that supports the usage of
Nitinol in modern day bridges
University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering 1
2016/01/29
REFERENCES
[1] Moskowitz, Peter. 2013, “Many US bridges are structurally
unsound: report.” Aljazeera America. (Online Article).
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/16/many-usbridges-arestructurallyunsoundsaysnewreport.html
[2] Speicher, Matthew S. 2011, “Experimental results of a NiTi
shape memory alloy (SMA)-based recentering beam-column
connection.”
Engineering
Structures.
(Article).
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/command/detail?sid=79767
b18-8650-43cd-9a71de44a5252950%40sessionmgr4003&vid=9&hid=4101
p2448-2457
[3] Rafiee, Misha. 2012, “Smart Materials Improve
Earthquake-Resistant Bridge Design.” California Institute of
Technology.
(Online
article).
http://www.livescience.com/22317-smart-materialsearthquake-safe-bridges-nsf-bts.html
[4] Rafiee, Misha. 2013, “Strong, elastic “smart materials” aid
design of earthquake-resistant bridges.” National Science
Foundation.
(Online
Article).
http://www.nsf.gov/mobile/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_i
d=128937&org=NSF
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cruz Noguez, Carlos A. 2013, “Performance of Advanced
Materials
during Earthquake
Loading
Tests
of
a Bridge System.” Journal of Structural Engineering.
(Article).
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0
90092c5-e59d-4a1a-917b524ab83a9eed%40sessionmgr4001&vid=20&hid=4101
p144-154
This article from the Journal of Structural Engineering goes
into extreme detail about the uses of SMA’s while constructing
bridges. The article includes pictures of columns that
incorporated SMA’s and columns that didn’t use SMA’s. The
results were obvious and showed that using SMA’s can
provide immense structural support to a bridge. We will use
Cole Burden
Hunter Stept
these facts and picture in the middle of our paper where we
explain the advantages on nitinol.
information in the section of our paper about the different
materials used for bridges and how they compare to the super
elastic metal known as nitinol.
Farhey, Daniel N. 2014, “Operational Structural Performances
of Bridge Materials by Deterioration Trends.” Journal of
Performance
of
Constructed
Facilities.
(Article).
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0
90092c5-e59d-4a1a-917b524ab83a9eed%40sessionmgr4001&vid=55&hid=4101
p168-177.
This article is from the Journal of Performance of
Constructed Facilities and it mainly covers the topic of
structural deficiency among bridges. Although our topic is not
structural deficiency, we still may be able to incorporate facts
from this article at the start of our paper to provide the reader
with a perspective of how important it is for bridges to be
structurally efficient.
Rafiee, Misha. 2012, “Smart Materials Improve EarthquakeResistant Bridge Design.” California Institute of Technology.
(Online article). http://www.livescience.com/22317-smartmaterials-earthquake-safe-bridges-nsf-bts.html
This online article was written by a graduate student at the
California Institute of Technology. The article goes in depth
about bridges that are susceptible to earthquakes and how
shape memory alloys can solve the problem and minimize the
amount of tilt a column can have after an earthquake. This
article provides valuable facts and videos that we will use in
the second last section of our paper dealing with bridges that
are under stress from earthquakes.
Rafiee, Misha. 2013, “Strong, elastic “smart materials” aid
design of earthquake-resistant bridges.” National Science
Foundation.
(Online
Article).
http://www.nsf.gov/mobile/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_i
d=128937&org=NSF
This online article written by the same author as above was
posted on the National Science Foundation. The reading goes
into even more detail about how the metal is made and what
chemicals it is composed of. We can use this article in the early
stages of our paper when we are just introducing nitinol. It also
states the cost of nitinol when used for the construction of
bridges.
Galambos, Theodore V. 2008, “The Safety of Bridges.”
National
Academy
of
Engineering.
(Article).
https://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/TransportationInfra
structure/TheSafetyofBridges.aspx
This article, from the National Academy of Engineering
gives us a general overview of how bridges collapse and what
to do ethically if your bridge has collapsed. There are various
charts and graphs incorporated in this article that we can use
near our introduction to show the importance of a stronger and
more flexible material. We can use the ethics part of this article
in our conclusion possibly.
Moskowitz, Peter. 2013, “Many US bridges are structurally
unsound: report.” Aljazeera America. (Online Article).
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/16/many-usbridges-arestructurallyunsoundsaysnewreport.html
This article, from the U.S. based news channel Aljazeera
America, provides us with a basic and general overview of
America’s infrastructure. The article provides valuable facts
explaining the number of bridges there are in the U.S. and the
number of bridges that are considered “structurally deficient”.
These facts are important to us because they illustrate the
importance of nitinol used in bridge structures.
DesRoches, R. 2002, “Seismic retrofit of simply
supported bridges using shape memory alloys.” Engineering
Structures.
(Online
article).
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=14
317c72-8567-4b52-97a7646a6e34e2cd%40sessionmgr198&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdG
U9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=7752970&db=aph p325
This online article from a scholarly journal investigates the
strength and elasticity of certain shape memory alloys such as
nitinol. The article provides cold hard facts that will be useful
in the heart of paper when we are explaining how nitinol is
actually produced. There are also many charts and graphs that
could be useful to our power point presentation.
Speicher, Matthew S. 2011, “Experimental results of a NiTi
shape memory alloy (SMA)-based recentering beam-column
connection.”
Engineering
Structures.
(Article).
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/command/detail?sid=79767
b18-8650-43cd-9a71de44a5252950%40sessionmgr4003&vid=9&hid=4101
p2448-2457
This article is from a professional, peer-reviewed journal
and it goes into detailed about the advantages when using
nickel-titanium (nitinol). In the article, experiments were
performed that tested the elasticity and flexibility of different
types of metals used in common bridges today. The results
showed that nitinol performed extremely well and the metal
had significant re-centering abilities. We will use this
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