Design, Construction and Load Testing of the Pat Daly Road Bridge in Washington County, MO, with Internal Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymers Reinforcement

The overarching goal of this project is to deploy and assess an innovative corrosion-free bridge construction technology for long-term performance of new and existing bridges. The research objective of this project is to conduct a comprehensive study (instrumentation, construction, both laboratory and field evaluation) of a rapidly constructed and durable, three-span bridge with cast-in-place cladding steel reinforced concrete substructure and precast concrete decks/girders reinforced with glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP). The bridge has one conventional concrete-girder span, one conventional steel-girder span, and one innovative concrete box-girder span. The conventional concrete and steel girders were used to demonstrate the effective use of corrosion-free bridge decks in deck replacement projects and, as benchmarks, to demonstrate the pros and cons of the innovative concrete box girders. The bridge was instrumented with embedded strain gauges to monitor the strains at critical locations during load testing. The collected data will allow the understanding of load distribution in various GFRP bars of the innovative concrete box girders and bridge deck slabs. Specifically, a full-scale concrete box girder and a full-scale concrete slab with internal GFRP reinforcement were tested in the Highbay Structures Laboratory at Missouri University of Science and Technology to ensure that the test bridge components behaved as designed prior to the field construction. Furthermore, in-situ load tests of the completed bridge were conducted to demonstrate the load capacity and behavior of individual components and the bridge as a system. The field validated technology will have a longlasting value for future deck replacement projects of existing bridges and new constructions. It will provide a viable alternative to conventional bridge systems/materials for the improvement of our Nation’s deteriorating infrastructure.