E – 1974 Bridges Types, Components, Deterioration, Failures, & Preventing Future Failures

The objective of this course is to assist a licensed design professional, forensic structural engineers, consulting engineers or/and a licensed general contractor to deeply understand bridge failures and structural deterioration for the purpose of understanding the elements that cause deterioration in bridge structures and the factors that lead to the structural failures.

This course examines bridge failures and structural deterioration for the purpose of understanding the elements that cause deterioration in bridge structures and the factors that lead to the structural failures. There are a number of elements that cause the material in bridge structural components to degrade and deteriorate over time, in both steel and RC (reinforced concrete) bridges. The two dominate elements causing deterioration are deicing chemicals (chlorides) and vehicle over loading. These two elements affect all types of bridges and their components. In extreme cases extensive deterioration potentially leads to structural failure. Of the bridge failures presented in this course each failure has one or more of these factors which contributed to the bridge collapsing.