Bridge Monitoring Plan
Developed a monitoring plan to monitor the new bearing and bridge girders
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The Challenge
- Bearing connection failure caused major stress to bridge deck and needed to be immediately closed to all traffic
- Bridge closure prompts urgent need for monitoring program
- Experts sought to expedite bridge restoration
With the bearing connection failure causing major distress to the bridge deck, the bridge needed to be immediately closed to all traffic, impacting the public for commuting and commerce for the major interstate highway. The client was in immediate need of experts to devise a quick monitoring program so the bridge could be back up and running as soon as possible.
The Solution
Kentucky DOT referred the bridge contractor to Geocomp to develop and install a monitoring system. Geocomp was able to utilize our technologies and expertise to quickly develop a monitoring plan consisting of string potentiometers and tiltmeters to monitor the bearing and the bridge girders. The plan was approved by both DOTs and Geocomp agreed to be “on-call” to install the monitoring system as soon as the repairs were completed.
The contractor installed a temporary restraining system to hold the bridge deck in place while repair plans were finalized and bearing restraints were fabricated. Geocomp installed the monitoring system ahead of the final repairs to monitor the functionality of the temporary restraining system and allow for I-64 to be re-opened. Real-time monitoring provided through iSiteCentral© allowed the contractor, both DOT’s, and the engineer of record to monitor the temporary restraints on the bridge for two weeks before the final repairs were completed on the bearing. After final repairs to the bearing, Geocomp continued monitoring for one month to determine the repairs were effective and that there were no remaining stability concerns with the newly installed bearing anchors and concrete piers.
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