Engineering technique allows for rapid repair of bridges – without extra costs

Wednesday, 18 April 2012 11:23

News & Events - Engineering News

April 18, 2012

A novel engineering tool is helping transportation officials in Massachusetts meet tight deadlines as they work to repair bridges across the state.

It typically takes crews years to repair bridges that are highly trafficked. It is also a logistical nightmare for public officials, who have to organize detours and inform drivers about changes in traffic. However, Massachusetts was able to drastically reduce the duration of repair work, with crews completely restoring a number of structures throughout the Bay State over only a weekend.

The New York Times reports that Massachusetts employed "accelerated bridge construction," a novel technique that has arisen from advancements in engineering research and development over the past few years. The process is particularly effective because it can cut the total amount of time needed to either repair or construct new bridges by more than a year, according to experts.

Federal Highway Administration head Victor Mendez said that accelerated bridge construction represents the future of domestic repair work. Massachusetts is at the forefront of the movement in the U.S., and Mendez told The Times that the scheme "will be the new normal" throughout the nation over the coming years.

Massachusetts has fully embraced accelerated bridge construction, with the state replacing 14 bridges on Interstate 93 in 2011. The work, which would have taken years if done in a conventional manner, took only 10 weekends. States elsewhere in the U.S. have also embraced such advanced engineering techniques, which is beneficial for bridges and other structures that are simply too popular to close to the public for an extended period of time.

In California, for instance, crews are set to add 300 feet of new roadway to the Golden Gate Bridge. Transportation officials asserted that the bridge is simply too popular to close during such maintenance work. Instead, they plan to install the new roadway incrementally, with crews placing one 25-foot piece of road at a time.

Frank DePaola, the administrator of the highway division at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, said that accelerated bridge construction is often less expensive than traditional techniques. State residents have also supported such projects, as they have reduced traffic times and highway closures that once plagued bridge repair projects.

"The highway department didn't use to see the drivers as customers," DePaola remarked. "For a while there, the highway department was so focused on construction and road projects, it's almost as if the contractors became their customers."

Still, accelerated bridge repair work requires a significant amount of planning and engineering prowess. The Federal Highway Administration notes that advanced bridge construction represents a "paradigm shift in the project planning and procurement approach where the need to minimize mobility impacts which occur due to onsite construction activities are elevated to a higher priority."

As states such as Massachusetts and California continue to successfully employ advanced bridge construction in their work to repair dilapidated structures, other states are set to follow course. According to the federal government, approximately 25 percent of the nation's 600,000 bridges currently require rehabilitation, repair or total replacement.

Advanced bridge construction could help reduce overall construction work, saving cash-strapped state governments money and improving safety.