Students Build a Better Bridge with What'sBest!

Every year, the American Institute of Steel Construction sponsors the Student Steel Bridge Competition. Civil engineering students nationwide compete in the design and construction of a bridge. In last year's competition, a creative group of students from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette used ingenuity, hard work, and What'sBest! to finish among the top teams. The judging for the competition is based upon construction speed, weight, aesthetics, stiffness, construction economy, and structural efficiency. Through participation in the competition, students gain practical experience in structural design, fabrication processes, construction planning, organization, and teamwork.

The basic strategy of the student team from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was to try to focus on one key aspect – the structural efficiency (a function of the weight of the bridge and its stiffness). They formulated a What'sBest! model in Excel that divided the 20 foot long bridge into 1 inch increments and calculated the stiffness and total weight.

The What'sBest! model selected the sizes of the beams in the bridge that would optimize the structural efficiency while satisfying constraints that attempted to ensure a design that was practical to build in a reasonable amount of time. They ran the model several times adjusting the constraints while estimating the construction speed and economy until they came upon a final design with which they were comfortable. "We had great success in using What'sBest!," reported Eddie Leblanc, UL Lafayette team representative. "It provided us with a great advantage in our regional competition, where we placed first overall. We then made a few modifications before the national competition and placed third overall. This was only possible through the use of What'sBest!."

Congratulations to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette team on their excellent finish and creative use of What'sBest!.

For general information on What'sBest!'s capabilities, visit our What'sBest! product page. You can download a demo version of What'sBest! from our download page or order a full blown version directly from our order page.

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