• Question: How was the golden gate bridge constructed?

    Asked by JohnHawkins9E to Aislinn, Fiona, Nathan, Padraic, Sinead on 2 Feb 2015.
    • Photo: Nathan Quinlan

      Nathan Quinlan answered on 2 Feb 2015:

      I don’t know, but I can tell you an Irish engineer was in charge of it. Michael O’Shaughnessy from Limerick was the San Francisco chief city engineer at the time it was built. He studied in NUI Galway, where I work, and went to the USA when he was 21.

    • Photo: Sinead Quirke

      Sinead Quirke answered on 2 Feb 2015:

      To answer this question would take hundreds of pages and a lot of study of the archives.
      Key principles that I would be thinking about would be
      1.who is the person with overall responsibilty for the construction? someone needs to be in charge and make the final decisions.
      2. who has checked that the design will work?
      3. do the materials being delivered to the site exactly match what was specified in the design
      4. are the people workign on the site trained and do they have the right tools and equipment.
      5. I would start with the foundations for the pillars for the bridge – you woudl need specialist equipment to drill down on the sea bed and pour the concrete foundations.
      6 Once the foundatiosn are built and have been tested and checked I would then build the steel supports, then attach the cables – this is a suspension bridge so the last thing I would build is the road that is being suspended.
      7. testing and checking quality and strength would be vital at every stage.

    • Photo: Aislinn Coghlan

      Aislinn Coghlan answered on 9 Feb 2015:

      Hi,

      I think Snead has covered this pretty extensively! Such a massive feat of engineering would have a huge crossfunctional team. From the initial drawing to actually laying the steel – you can be sure an engineer was there all the way!

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