The Creative Engineering of Leonardo da Vinci’s Self-Supporting Bridge, Defined

The video above from Sabins Civ­il Engi­neer­ing promis­es to show “the MAGIC in the back of Da Vinci’s Self Sup­port­ing Bridge.” That seems like a typ­i­cal examination­ple of YouTube hyper­bole, although on first look, it isn’t in any respect obvi­ous how the frag­ile-look­ing struc­ture can keep up, a lot much less sup­port the burden of a move­ing military. No longer best does the design use no according to­ma­nent joints, says the nar­ra­tor, “the extra weight at the bridge, the more potent it turns into.” The hot button is the dis­tinc­tive guy­ner through which the items inter­lock, and the way it directs pressure to cre­ate a “fric­tion lock” that guarantees sta­bil­i­ty.

Take away only one piece of the bridge, how­ev­er, and all of it comes crash­ing down, which is extra fea­ture than trojan horse: designed to facil­i­tate troop transfer­ments, the struc­ture may well be dis­guy­tled to pre­vent use by way of the ene­my much more eas­i­ly than it used to be publish within the first position.

Simply one of the most var­i­ous gear of warfare Leonar­do got here up with, this bridge used to be con­ceived below the shopper­age of the well-known states­guy Cesare Bor­gia (a first-rate inspi­ra­tion for Nic­colò Machi­avel­li’s The Prince), who hired him as an archi­tect and mil­i­tary engi­neer within the ear­ly fif­teen-hun­dreds.

Even though Leonar­do’s bridge designs have confirmed influ­en­tial within the half-mil­len­ni­um since his dying — recall to mind him subsequent time you move the Gala­ta Bridge in Istan­bul — no evi­dence stays that he ever constructed one in his existence­time. However not like maximum of his inven­tions, actual­ized or the­o­ret­i­cal, you’ll construct it your­self lately with­out a lot dif­fi­cul­ty. The video gifts an examination­ple sufficiently big to stroll throughout, which can make it really feel fairly much less sta­ble than it actu­al­ly is. Success­i­ly for stu­dents appearance­ing to below­stand the self-sup­port­ing bridge in a hands-on guy­ner, the similar engi­neer­ing prin­ci­ples follow simply as smartly on the extra guy­age­ready scale of father­si­cle sticks — a mod­ern construct­ing mate­r­i­al at which Leonar­do him­self would positive­ly have mar­veled.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The best way to Construct Leonar­do da Vinci’s Inge­nious Self-Sup­port­ing Bridge: Renais­sance Inno­va­tions You Can Nonetheless Revel in As of late

MIT Researchers three-D Print a Bridge Imag­ined by way of Leonar­do da Vin­ci in 1502— and Turn out That It Actu­al­ly Works

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Inven­tions Come to Lifestyles as Muse­um-Qual­i­ty, Paintings­ready Mod­els: A Swing Bridge, Scythed Char­i­ot, Consistent with­puppy­u­al Movement Gadget & Extra

The Inge­nious Inven­tions of Leonar­do da Vin­ci Recre­at­ed with three-D Ani­ma­tion

Leonar­do da Vin­ci Attracts Designs of Long run Battle Machines: Tanks, Gadget Weapons & Extra

Constructed to Remaining: How Historic Roman Bridges Can Nonetheless With­stand the Weight of Mod­ern Vehicles & Vehicles

Based totally in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and extensive­casts on towns, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives come with the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Towns and the e book The State­much less Town: a Stroll thru Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him at the social web­paintings for­mer­ly referred to as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.