A hydraulic press pushes down on one of the twin I-beams from a bridge made by Western Engineering Technology teams. Western won first and second place at the Super Light Weight Composite Bridge Building competition at the 2008 SAMPE conference in Long Beach, Calif. The bridge is made out of a carbon fiber composite material to make it lighter, yet stronger. photo courtesy of John Furtado

The Society for Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (SAMPE) held the competition May 20 in Long Beach, Calif.

The two Western teams used carbon-fiber composite materials to build a 24-inch I-beam to support weight just like a bridge would as vehicles cross it, Western senior Jason Merrifield said.

Carbon fiber materials are commonly found in products such as the Boeing 787, Formula SAE race cars and a variety of road motorcycles.

The competition was broken into four different classes of bridges: fiber glass, natural bridges built completely of natural materials, a carbon kit where students would build a bridge from a kit at the competition and the open class, Merrifield said.

Both Western teams competed in the open class where they stormed the competition with the carbon- fiber composite bridges they had built, he said.

The first-place bridge weighed 1.63 pounds and held 9,777 pounds.

Merrifield’s team won second place.

“The competition wasn’t even close—our bridge weighed 1.41 pounds and held 8,370 pounds during the event,” Merrifield said.

The teams first started on the project in a class called Advanced Composites, which is offered in the Engineering Technology department.

One of the assignments in the class was to build a bridge within the parameters set by SAMPE and then test it in the class.

Students in the class then  proceeded to test their bridges, and the top team in the class was encouraged to compete in the SAMPE conference, said Western senior John Furtado.

Steve Dillman, engineering technology department chair,  paid the $40 entry fee for the top team.

Dillman said the second team that competed really impressed him with the design strength of its bridge, so he decided to send the second group to SAMPE as well.

The engineering department at Western differs from engineering departments at other universities because of the emphasis on hand on training instead of in-class lectures, Dillman said.

This factor may have contributed to the teams’ success during the competition, he said.

“When our students do well in competitions and in the classroom, then that shows that we as teachers are doing well too,” Dillman said.

The SAMPE is a society where schools and professionals have a forum to share information and ideas about their field.

Students get a chance to network with other people who work with the same materials such as carbon-fiber composites.

Carbon-fiber composites are available everywhere plastic is seen, Dillman said.

Using carbon fiber presents an advantage because of its higher-strength capacity and lower weight. Some car hoods are made of this material, he said.

Composite materials such as carbon-fiber composite is a blossoming industry, with taps in the medical field, automotive industry and marine industry, Merrifield said.

After graduating from Western, both Merrifield and Furtado hope to go into the composite- materials industry, Furtado said he is interested in automotive composite materials and Merrifield is interested in becoming a composite engineer.

Next year’s SAMPE competition will be held in Baltimore, Md. where Merrifield said he hopes to compete in all four bridge- building classes.

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