Tennessee DOT destroys a good truss bridge

(Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Alamy; Satellite)

This is one of several truss bridges that TDOT has replaced in the last decade or so.

Dav Jones posted four photos with the comment: "back a few years ago. 2250"
Jonathan Iley Sparta Tn
(I changed the order of the photos so that a view of the old truss bridge would be the first photo in the blog.)

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Jonathan Iley commented on Dav's post

Corradino

April 2, 2013

Corradino’s First CEI contract in Tennessee

Corradino was just awarded its first Construction Engineering & Inspection (CEI) contract in Tennessee by the Tennessee Department of Transportation. This project involves construction of a 1,500+ ft., 5-span bridge with continuous welded plate girders and a composite deck slab. The project is on State Route 26 over the Caney Fork River in Smithville, TN. The proposed structure will replace the existing steel truss bridge to the north. The bridge will be founded on 11-foot diameter drilled shafts with the deepest pier approximately 120-feet below the surface of the river. The project is scheduled to be let to construction on April 5, 2013 with a completion date of June 30, 2016. Corradino is the Prime with Smith Seckman Reid, Inc. and Mainstream Commercial Divers, Inc. as subs.

Pinterest, Sharon Ferrari Walker

Note that the new bridge is using steel beams. Unless those beams are made with Corten or galvanized steel, they replaced a pretty rusting bridge with an ugly rusting bridge. Furthermore, they replaced a two-lane bridge with a two-lane bridge. Although the new bridge does have shoulders and it looks like the piers were built to support an upgrade to a four-lane bridge.

Sharon's photo shows the bridge design is plate steel girders like many of the bridges on the Illinois River that replaced truss bridges. But Illinois DOT was taught by the Walsh Construction that using post-tension with prestressed concrete bulb beams is somewhat cheaper than a segmental precast box design and significantly cheaper than a steel delta frame design. It's too bad that DOTs get 80% funding from the federal tax payers so they are not motivated to learn newer, cheaper construction techniques than steel beams. [ConcreteProducts, DeBruler]

We can still see the truss bridge in this image. It appears the falsework is built a lot closer to the main piers than I would have expected. In Sharon's photo above, the falsework is where I would have expected it --- in the middle of the span where they need to make a field joint for the girders.

Global Earth, 9/2014

(new window)  If you want to skip the drive-bys, the "energetic felling" starts around 3:10.


(new window) This recorded the second phase of the demolition.