STEEL BRIDGE COMPETITION
THE COMPETITION
The Student Steel Bridge Competition (SSBC) is an annual competition hosted by ASCE and AISC in which civil engineering students are challenged to build a steel structure that meets client specifications and optimizes performance and economy. It provides students with design and management experience and the opportunity to learn fabrication processes. A problem statement is provided and the goal of each team is to successfully design a solution and construct a scaled model to represent it.
SCORING
An official scoring spreadsheet is provided and considers the following factors for deciding award recipients and for determining the overall winner of the Regional Competition.
Aesthetics
The bridge's appearance and a poster describing the bridge design is evaluated.
Construction Speed
The bridge with the lowest total construction time wins this category.
Lightness
The bridge with the least total weight wins this category.
Stiffness
The bridge with the lowest aggregate deflection wins this category.
Construction Economy
The bridge with the lowest construction cost wins this category.
Structural Efficiency
The bridge with the lowest structural cost wins this category.
Overall Performance
The bridge with the lowest value of the sum of the construction costs, structural costs and violations of the Team Contract wins the Competition
Video
This is an optional award category in which teams can submit a video that highlights their bridge's design, structural specifications, and fabrication process.
AWARDS
The team that scores the highest amount of points in the Overall Performance Category wins the Regional Competition.
A team is eligible to be invited to the National Finals if it is ranked in all awards at its Regional Competition as a non-guest competitor and is in good standing with ASCE. In the National Finals, judges will award the design/build contract to the team whose model satisfies the specified requirements and best achieves the project objectives.
Previous Steel Bridges
2024 Metropolitan Symposium
Most Improved
Our ASCE Student Chapter's Steel Bridge Team has been awarded Most Improved! This recognition was received at the latest ASCE Metropolitan Student Symposium, and we are incredibly proud of our team's achievement. This was the second year our chapter had a Steel Bridge Team, despite the challenges our team faced the SBU team demonstrated exceptional teamwork, innovation, and creativity in designing and constructing a steel bridge. The Steel Bridge team managed to reduce their construction time from 4 hours to 40 minutes! This result was built upon a year of hard work, from designing, cutting, welding, and drilling the individual members to constructing the bridge during the competition.
