Long-span suspension bridge
Puente colgante de gran luz (cadenas de hierro y cables)
- Date
- 1819-1826 · confidence high
- Place
- Menai (Anglesey), Wales, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Thomas Telford (Menai); Marc Seguin (wire cables, Tournon 1825); John A. Roebling (stranded cables, 1841-1855)
- People
- 👤 John Augustus Roebling1806–1869👤 Marc Seguin1786–1875👤 Thomas Telford1757–1834
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Bridges whose deck hangs from chains or cables anchored to towers, achieving spans of over 170 m unthinkable in stone. The Menai bridge (1826) was the largest in the world, and Seguin's at Tournon (1825) the first with wire cables.
Shared priority: Finley (United States, 1801) for the stiffened deck, Telford for the long span, Seguin for the wire cable and Roebling for the cable spun in place.
What it led to
- Crossings of estuaries and gorges: road and railway networks
- Roebling's stranded steel cables and the Brooklyn Bridge (1883)
- Civil engineering as a profession (Institution of Civil Engineers, 1818)
Built on
- Thangtong Gyalpo's iron-chain bridgesc. 1430
- Puddling and rolling1784
- Puddling (wrought-iron chains)
- Jacob's Creek chain bridge (Finley, 1801)
- Rope bridges
Made possible
- Aeroelastic flutter of bridges (Tacoma Narrows)7 de noviembre de 1940
- Modern cable-stayed bridge (Strömsund)1955
- Brooklyn Bridge
- Steel cable for lifts and funiculars
- 20th-century suspension bridges