The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) selected B&N to assist the ADOT Bridge Management Section with National Bridge Inspection Standard compliance.
Services provided under this contract included:
- Detailed inspections (in-depth, fracture critical, underwater, damage)
- Routine safety inspections
- Emergency bridge inspections
- Scour evaluations and scour plan of action
- Bridge load rating
- Bridge instrumentation and Structural Health Monitoring
- Ultrasonic pin testing
More than 950 bridges were inspected under this contract. Structures varied in length between 30 and 2,000 feet in length and included a number of Arizona’s signature bridges such as the Navajo, Burro Creek and Hell Canyon bridges. The types of bridges inspected include:
- Reinforced concrete slab
- Box and beam
- Prestressed beam and post-tensioned concrete
- Timber and steel beam
- Girder, truss and arch bridges
Routine inspections included observations and measurements to determine the physical and functional condition of the bridge, identifying changes from previously recorded conditions, and ensuring that the structures continued to satisfy present service requirements.
In-depth inspections were performed using adapted climbing techniques and mechanical access equipment to gain hands-on access to primary structural members. Fatigue prone details and fracture critical members were inspected at arm’s length. Magnetic particle testing was used to examine suspect areas.
PONTIS element inspection data collected at each structure was entered into the AASHTO BrM Bridge Management software employed by ADOT for the first time on this inspection cycle. The project included collecting AASHTO defects and their quantities.