Bridge Deck Performance in Virginia

About the report:

One of the most comprehensive programs for the evaluation and definition of the performance of concrete in bridge decks was that undertaken cooperatively by the Portland Cement Association, the Bureau of Public Roads, and eight states distributed throughout the United States. Detailed studies of a few bridges were made in four states and surveys were made on from 100 to 150 bridges in each of eight states, including Virginia, and these were reported. The Research Council's special study of the bridge deck concrete included observation of construction and sampling on 17 structures distributed throughout the state with the exception of the easternmost (Suffolk) and westernmost (Bristol) highway construction districts. These decks were constructed during the spring and summer of 1963 under specifications, subsequently upgraded, that were adjudged to produce concrete of "borderline" performance in bridge decks. These decks had been under traffic for six winters. Because of the similarity of the objectives of the two studies it was deemed desirable to include during the survey of the 17 bridges of the Research Council's project a resurvey of the structures included in the PCA-BPR survey last inspected in 1961.

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