Hydraulic Analysis of the Schoharie Creek Bridge
Ten people died on April 5, 1987 as a result of the collapse of two spans of a New York State Thruway bridge into the floodwaters of Schoharie Creek. The cause of the bridge failure was...
Beautiful Bridges
There are no rules for creating beautiful bridges. While talent and experience count, bridge design is quite complex and collaboration between highway engineers, architects, and landscape...
From Guesswork to Guarantee?
Maser describes a project to determine the effectiveness of radar and infrared thermography in detecting deterioration of asphalt overlaid bridge decks. The project, sponsored by the New...
Detecting the Defects
According to estimates, for every dollar spent on preventive maintenance of the infrastructure, $10 will be saved by avoiding emergency repairs after major structural failures. Technologies...
Preventive Maintenance: Fixing What Ain't Broke
Municipalities are often caught in the cycle of built-neglect-rebuild. For bridges, the solution is preventive maintenance: keep the bridges clean and painted, and they'll...
Parking Garage Crisis
Corrosion in reinforced concrete parking garages is reaching crisis proportions. The rehabilitation market for these structures is estimated to be as much as $750 million a year, or 30%...
Fast Track, Instant Track
There is a newly constructed railroad bridge over the Wilamette River in Portland, Oregon. The 499 ft. clear maritime channel allows the world's largest ships to navigate...
Box Segmentals: Refining Design
Officials at the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), which has built more precast concrete segmental box girder bridges than any other state, say their troubles with that design...
High-Strength Concrete: Weighing the Benefits
Russell, Gebler and Whiting describe the properties of high-strength concretes, the current state of knowledge on freeze/thaw effects, and procedures for batching, mixing, transporting,...
The Great Quake: On Site Reports
Written within two weeks of the Oct. 17, 1989 California earthquake, these comments cannot be considered definitive. But they do stress two points: 1) Earthquake codes do work. Buildings...
Classic Wood Structures
Wood has been used in a wide range of structural applications. When properly maintained, these structures can have a useful life from 50 years to several centuries. Thirty-seven unusual...
Landmarks in Civil Engineering
Historic American engineering projects sampled in this article represent those documented in
Building Bridges Faster
Guidelines are presented that tell how to write a contract that will lead to radical reductions in the time to build or rebuild a bridge. The article covers how to write an incentive/disincentive...
On the Post-Flutter State of Cable-Stayed Bridges
This paper deals with the post-flutter vibrations of cable-stayed bridges. An approximate theory and an approximate analytical solution method have been established. A numerical example,...
Burlington Cable-Stayed Bridge
The Burlington cable-stayed bridge will carry US34 over the Mississippi River from Burlington, Iowa to Gulfport, Illinois. There will be two 12-ft lanes in each direction plus an acceleration...
Quincy Bayview Bridge?Construction Control
A cable-stayed bridge crossing the Mississippi River at Quincy, Illinois, was completed in August 1987. The structure includes twin concrete towers and a hybrid deck section. The cable...
New Parallel Wire Bundle for Cable-Stayed Bridges
A parallel wire bundle is described which is twisted with a long lay length. It is corrosion protected by an inner fill and outer coating of polyurethane. It presents a specially shaped,...
Development of Bridge Design Code
Load and resistance parameters for bridges involve uncertainties due to natural randomness, imperfect models or human errors. Because of these uncertainties, absolute reliability is not...
Probabilistic Fatigue Crack Growth Analysis with Reliability Updating
A randomized fatigue crack growth model based on the Paris and Erdogan crack growth equation is used to estimate the reliability of fatigue sensitive details in steel bridges. This model...
Bridge Reliability Evaluation Using 3-D Analysis and Damage Scenarios
This paper reports analytical investigations into the system strength and reliability evaluation of existing bridges using 3-D inelastic analysis and damage scenarios. In this context,...
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