Welcome to March. Later this month, ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) will release its 2025 Infrastructure Report Card. Released every four years, 2021 achieved a C-. Will the score be higher or lower this year? No matter the score, what is needed is progress—and we are beginning to see new innovation aim to do exactly that.
Let’s consider an example out of Texas A&M Engineering. The researchers have developed a method for bridge construction that will hit the trifecta: reduce time, cut costs, and improve performance. The 42-month, $1 million project will explore more efficient methods of anchoring steel reinforcement in bridge structure joints.
More specifically, one area being researched in depth is a straddle bent—two large columns and a beam to support elevated roadways. The university will provide the Texas Dept. of Transportation with updated design guidelines for using hooked and headed bars in bridge structures, supported by full-scale experimental testing.
One innovative area being evaluated is the use of headed bars, which are reinforcing bars with a large nut-like head attached at the bar end to prevent it from being pulled out of the concrete. Full-scale straddle bent joints incorporating headed bars are currently undergoing construction and testing at the university.
Additional tests focus on further understanding the load transfer mechanisms provided by hooked and headed bars in additional TxDOT bridge applications.
Certainly, this is only one example. We have written about many others. For example, the Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation is using measurement technology to monitor the structural health of the Washington Bridge.
Providence is proactively using advanced technology to help maintain the structural health of the Washington Bridge, which will have 40 Lineas digital quartz sensors covering 10 lanes of traffic and will be a very large digital weigh-in motion site. This is one example of how technology can help us build better bridges.
And this is what is so desperately needed in infrastructure today. Do we need funding? Of course. Do we need new workers? Absolutely. But what is needed more than ever is innovation and excitement about exploring new ways to do things.
It will be interesting to pay attention to this market and see what happens at the end of the month with ASCE’s Infrastructure Report Card. Time will tell if new ideas can give new life to infrastructure construction.
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