Sacramento County, California Bridges: Rancho Murieta Footbridge across the Cosumnes River (3)

March 2013 (38.49477 Degrees, -121.08421 Degrees) Cosumnes River Bridge

Another view of the Cosumnes River Footbridge, which was completed in 2008. The bowstring truss (and the parallel chord approach spans) are composed entirely of diagonal load bearing members. The only vertical elements are at the supports.

The trick to building timber structures is to provide well-designed connections. The steel plate connectors look like they were manufactured especially for this bridge. Also, the trusses use diagonal steel rods at the top and bottom chords instead of the usual sway bracing.

There are several websites that discuss this unusual structural including StructureMag which has some nice construction photos and the section properties of most of the bridge members.

Sacramento County, California Bridges: Rancho Murieta Footbridge across the Cosumnes River (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.