Last month I was down in Cincinnati, OH for the Fracture Critical Inspection of the Taylor Southgate Bridge. From Wiki:
The Taylor–Southgate Bridge is a continuous truss bridge that was built in 1995. It has a main span of 850 feet (260 m), and a total span of 1,850 feet (560 m). The bridge carries U.S. Route 27 across the Ohio River, connecting Newport, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio.Like other inspections, I tried to get the inspectors POV by wearing my GoPro. Only ended up wearing it one day since it does get in the way when you stick your head into built up members.
Some regard this bridge, which was a replacement for the Cincinnati-Newport Bridge built by Samuel Bigstaff [1], as a little too plain in its design for a major urban bridge, especially considering many cities today are opting for a more elegant design, such as a cable stayed bridge.[2]
The bridge is named for the families of James Taylor, Jr. and Richard Southgate, two important early settlers of Newport. Richard was the father of William Wright Southgate, a pre Civil War Congressman from northern Kentucky.
Much like the other inspections I've been part of in Kentucky, this truss was primarily inspected through rope access techniques. The first three days were spent on the upper chord and doing drops to see the underside of the chord and connection to the diagonal tension members. This bridge was easily climbed due to its designers incorporating details for inspectors to use such as extra angles for stepping around gusset plates.
On the weekend a man-lift was used to inspect the area between the lower and upper chord where it was not efficient to use climbers.
The Cincinnati area is home to many other Ohio River Bridge crossings
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