ABSTRACT
Civil structures are omnipresent in every society, regardless of culture, religion, geographical location or economic development. The most common civil structures are buildings, which serve several needs within society such as shelter from weather, security, privacy, to store belongings and to comfortably live and work. Bridges are an extremely important civil structure for modern transportation systems. All civil structures sustain loads while they fulfil their functions. These loads can be static, such as self-weight, or dynamic, such as wind, seismic and vehicle loads, or transitory, such as impact loads caused by an explosion. Dead loads are those acting on the structure as a result of the weight of the structure itself and the components that are permanent fixtures on the structure. Design loads for a suspension bridge mainly include dead load, traffic load, temperature load, wind load and seismic load. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
