Bridges in 18^th century

Rope bridges, a simple type of postponement bridge, were used by the Inca civilization in the Andes mountains of South America, just prior to European colonization in the 1500s.

During the 18th century there were many innovations in the plan of timber bridges by Hans Ulrich, Johannes Grubenmann, and others. The earliest engineering book on building bridges was written by Hubert Gautier in 1716.

With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, truss systems of wrought iron were urbanized for larger bridges, but iron did not have the tensile strength to support large loads. With the advent of steel, which has a high tensile power, much larger bridges were built, many using the ideas of Gustave Eiffel.