Fhwa bridge replacement and rehabilitation program

The new design reduces the amount of future maintenance needed compared to the original. The renovation integrated several FHWA initiatives to preserve the bridge and minimize construction time, including accelerated bridge construction techniques, prefabricated bridge element systems, and the use of ultra-high performance concrete, which will also help future maintenance.

In addition, passive corrosion anodes help reduce chloride corrosion. These initiatives, along with a concrete overlay, delivered a final watertight bridge and reduced construction duration and long-term maintenance. The new deck extends below the sidewalk to prevent water from entering the bridge.

The existing bascule span had exterior fascia girders with floor beams holding up the structure. The barge and shoring towers supported the floor beams on the bascule span, enabling workers to cut the bascule span in half while live traffic drove overhead.

The construction replaced the existing concrete deck using accelerated bridge construction techniques with more than full-depth precast concrete deck panels. The use of precast concrete enabled the deck to be assembled in a controlled environment, rather than cast in place at the project site, where additional variables—from air temperature, humidity, precipitation, and evaporation to materials delayed by periodic traffic congestion—could have resulted in considerable delays and increased costs.

The offsite production meant that the precast deck panels could be constructed and stored until needed onsite. This led to more control of the schedule, reducing weather and supplier impacts and unanticipated cold joints. The project used stainless steel reinforcing in the precast deck panels to further improve quality, which significantly reduced concerns of possible corrosion in steel reinforcements.

The project succeeded in rehabilitating the national Capital's ceremonial entrance and preserving its historic character for future generations. For more information, see www. USA Banner. Department of Transportation U. Home Public Roads. Public Roads - Autumn Issue No:.

Publication Number:. The Arlington Memorial Bridge underwent a huge rehabilitation project, completed in December Walker, The rehabilitation project considered historic architectural details, like the decorative fascia shown being removed here, to be important features to preserve and restore.

Designing to Reduce Future Maintenance The deterioration of the bridge prior to construction occurred in part because of the intrusion of water and winter salting for snow.

The project team used floating barges to help with the rehabilitation. Here, the underside of the replaced bascule span is visible. The project used precast concrete bridge deck panels to shorten construction time and minimize future maintenance needs. A structure, including supports, erected over a depression or an obstruction, such as water, a highway, or a railway, having a track or passageway for carrying traffic or other moving loads, and having an opening measured along the center of the roadway of more than 20 feet between undercopings of abutments or spring lines of arches, or extreme ends of the openings for multiple boxes; it may include multiple pipes where the clear distance between openings is less than half of the smaller contiguous opening.

The numerical rating of a bridge based on its structural adequacy and safety, essentiality for public use, and its serviceability and functional obsolescence. The major work required to restore the structural integrity of a bridge as well as work necessary to correct major safety defects.

Deficient highway bridges on all public roads may be eligible for replacement or rehabilitation. Total replacement of a structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridge with a new facility constructed in the same general traffic corridor.

A nominal amount of approach work, sufficient to connect the new facility to the existing roadway or to return the gradeline to an attainable touchdown point in accordance with good design practice is also eligible. The replacement structure must meet the current geometric, construction and structural standards required for the types and volume of projected traffic on the facility over its design life.

The project requirements necessary to perform the major work required to restore the structural integrity of a bridge as well as work necessary to correct major safety defects are eligible except as noted under ineligible work. Bridges to be rehabilitated both on or off the F-A System shall, as a minimum, conform with the provisions of 23 CFR part , Design Standards for Federal-aid Highways, for the class of highway on which the bridge is a part. Except as otherwise prescribed by the Administrator, the costs of long approach fills, causeways, connecting roadways, interchanges, ramps, and other extensive earth structures, when constructed beyond the attainable touchdown point, are not eligible under the bridge program.

These requirements are prescribed in 23 CFR