United by Bridges

Received my WSP magazine today "United by Bridges" has a couple great articles which include international inter office assistance with designs and inspections, it's a great way to share knowledge.

ASCE conference in Seattle

Just found out my good friend Phillip Lanergan will be presenting at an ASCE conference in Seattle this coming July for his work on the East Boston CSO. Good luck Phil.

AMTRAK Fracture Critical Inspections

This morning I found out that we will begin our fracture critical inspections of several bridge which intersect AMTRAK. Last March I has my AMTRAK rail road safety training down in Providence which prepares consultants for working in the AMTRAK right of way safely. Unfortunately these inspections will be taking place late at night in the dead of winter. One thing that is always present at an AMTRAK inspection is waiting. Waiting for the safety briefing. Waiting for access to the tracks. Waiting for the power to be turned off and lines to be grounded. Hurry up and wait.

New Inspections

After finishing an inspection report, I moved onto setting up two new inspection assignments for RIDOT. Assignment #13 has 20 bridges that will be inspected sometime in March and April. Assignment #14 has 13 bridges that will begin in May. A few of the bridges I have actually inspected in the past and look forward to see how my inspections skills have changed (for the better hopefully).

Survived Skiing, Christmas, Family and a Blizzard

It's been a full week since I was last night the office, I lost a beard, gained a couple pounds and some bruises and missed a day snowed in down in Plympton MA with snow falling up to 18 inches in areas of Mass. Today I'm back in the swing of things and working on the Point Street Bridge fracture critical inspection report.

The Blizzard of 2010 has certainly effected my commute and added on a seconds with the classic marking your spot with random objects.

If you somehow did not hear about the blizzard or didn't see any pictures check it out.

Storm before the calm?

Today has been very productive and I've been busy trying to help out with markups to drawing and updating estimate quantities. Tomorrow I leave at 5am for Sunday River for three days full of skiing. Working none stop starts to take its tolls, luckily I've been shaving off time by not shaving.

Sunday River even has a daily report that I've been checking out each day to see the conditions and the number of trails open.
http://www.sundayriver.com/

Point Street Bridge

Today we begin the fracture critical inspection of the Point Street Bridge which spans over the Providence River in Providence RI. The bridge was built in 1927 as a swing bridge to allow larger boats upstream but the bridge is no longer has the motors to turn the four gears below. The inspection started with preparing for the 20 degree weather that was made even worse by the gusts of wind off the water. Before I could inspect the upper portion of the truss I first had to clean out 6" of ice from the inside of the bucket while the other part of the inspection team awaited the arrival of the safety boat and barge.

At first site the small barge seemed funny and misplaced among the large tug boats and other barges but the light weight barge was easy to maneuver and made for efficient inspection of the lower cord. The tide made the inspection slightly more difficult at certain times, at one point you were standing to see the lower portions of the cord and other times laying down to since there was only a foot or so of clearance.

  

 The upper portion of the truss reached up to about 75 feet about the water level and even with several layers of clothing I was still freezing.

Chester / Becket MA Designs

With the submittal date soon approaching for the Becket and Chester bridges, I gave up my free time after work to stay late and assist with markups and specifications. I don't know if I was having fun but it never seems that there is enough time when its a late Monday night.

The designs which are currently at 25% completion and the designs will replace the existing superstrucutres which currently date back to the early 1900's with new CONTECH arch systems or curved steel girders.

MassDOT currently has information about the designs on their site (http://www.mhd.state.ma.us/ProjectInfo/Main.asp?ACTION=ViewProject&PROJECT_NO=605440)

CONTECH is a great design solution for the modern engineer
http://www.contech-cpi.com/

Chruch Street Truss

Today I did the fracture critical inspection of the Church Street bridge in Cumberland RI which intersects the Providence & Worcester Railroad. Two years ago I also conducted the inspection but last time we only used a fiberglass ladder and this year we used a rail mounted elliot.

The inspection took a three man crew and was delayed while we waited for a P&W flagmen to arrive on site. While waiting we were able to complete the top cord and diagonals and take typical photos of the bridge.

After a couple hours the flagman was finally able to find the site and we were able to gain access to the tracks. The 60 foot rail mounted Elliot was able to get on the tracks in just a few minutes while we held traffic near the Ann & Hope Outlet store. 

Before we could start the inspection of the lower cord we had to wait for a light engine to be moved to providence. After the engine passed we were able to inspect the truss and confirm the condition that were noted in the last inspection. 

We found section loss to the lower cord but the state added repair plates to allow the bridge not to be posted.

Rope Access

Today was my first experience with a rope access inspection down in Cumberland RI on a pedestrian bridge. The bridge was part of our fracture critical inspection assignment and would have been $30,000 to rig. Using rope access saved the state money and time. Three RIDOT bridge group members even came to the bridge to see this in action.

Rope access is used in many countries but is still not common in the United States. Since rope access does not have regulations like many other forms of inspection techniques, it is important to be properly trained and to have redundant safety measures like having SPRAT certified technicians.

Rope access was used for most of the bridge but some parts were inspected from the ground. The ends of the bridge were fairly close to the ground which allowed the use of ladders.

Unfortunately the ends of the bridge were also guarded by two horrible smells. The West end of the bridge was located close to a sewer line and happened to be near a manhole. The East end smelt of a skunk, fortunately we were not able to confirm if there was a skunk there or not.