| Better Bridges
City Rehabs Historic Bridge
Rehabilitation rather than replacement
was the economical way to go.
The East Main Street Bridge in Newark, Ohio is an historic link between
an emerging downtown and east Newark’s key commercial and residential
areas.
As time, the elements, and the constant wear on the bridge took its
toll, a decision needed to be made whether to replace or renovate the
existing structure. After careful study, the community’s needs and
desires, and historical significance, made renovation rather than
replacement the better option.
The city contracted with Armstrong Steel and U.S.
Bridge of Cambridge, Ohio to take on the project.
“The city at that time went through several stages of having it
designed... having it looked at... and having the cost looked at. Finally
the city did decide to go ahead and rehab the bridge,” says Jeff
Wollenburg.
“We had about four fabrication shops working on this project. One
shop would take care of the floor beams and the stringers, and another
shop would have one truss laying down, rehabbing a truss. Another shop
would be doing the other truss. And then, we had the last shop taking care
of all the handrail, sidewalk brackets, and that type of thing,” says
Tom Nicholson.
U.S. Bridge net the many challenges this project presented. Engineers
had to decide what would be the best way to preserve the existing
materials during the dismantling.
They had to decide how much new steel to add to guarantee a long-life
span, and how to ensure that the retrofit would be the perfect fit when
re-erecting the bridge.
The route is vital to many, so the timeline from closure to re-opening
needed to be the absolute shortest possible. And project communication
between U.S. Bridge, the steel erectors, the galvanizers, the community,
and others had to be in perfect harmony.
“We worked hard to get our schedules down and work with all of our
subcontractors as well as trying to take into consideration community
concerts, which this project here in particular had a number of community
concerns because we shut down one of the major connectors between the east
and west sides of town. A lot of pedestrians were having to walk around. I
think the timing, scheduling, and planning made it a success as well,”
says Diane Reed.
Partners were Columbus Galvanizing, K&J Machine, and Armstrong
Steel.
“The biggest hurdle for us was the dismantling process because when
you’re taking the pieces out, piece by piece, making sure you don’t
saw the limb off behind you, basically you have to step it out and think
it out very carefully,” Reed says.
“With a lot of bridges, we are on the site when they are erecting the
bridges. For this particular bridge, I was here several days and answered
any questions that the field crew or the foreman might have,” Nicholson
says.
Project details
“With U.S. Bridge’s quickness to redo the rockers we had, there was
no delay in the work and there was no extra cost,” Wollenburg says.
U.S. Bridge technicians took the project head-on and were determined to
thoroughly handle every aspect of the job.
“U.S. Bridge took care of rehabbing the truss, the ornamental
handrail, the miscellaneous pipe rail around it, the bearings, the
rockers, and the bolsters. All the floor steel is new; the floor steel,
the floor beams, the stringers, and sidewalk brackets,” Nicholson says.
“The existing handrail was not able to be kept because it was too
rotten, decayed, and rusted. So they fabricated it to look just like the
original handrail,” Wollenburg reports.
Nicholson says they had to bore holes for the 36 pins, 18 per truss.
And these pins actually tie the diagonals and the verticals and the bottom
cord altogether and make the truss one unit. It was very important to lay
this truss down and actually put it together laying horizontally, making
sure that it fit prior to assembling it to eliminate any problems during
erection.
“When they had the structure laid down, it was very helpful for us to
view it so that we would have a better feel for what we would be dealing
with when we came back out here to the field and reassembled it. We had
substantial talks about the connection points and how those would be
handled and that we could get that process so it would be easier to
accomplish here in the field,” Reed says.
The East Main Street Bridge gleams with it’s silver metallic
galvanized coating, but appearance is not the only, or even the main,
reason for galvanizing the new and rehabilitated steel.
Wollenburg says that galvanizing provided a cost savings to the
taxpayers, to the city, and to the project.
Being one of only three bridge types of this kind in Ohio, the East
Main Street Bridge is once again a symbol of beauty, historic
significance, and community pride.
This article courtesy of U.S.
Bridge.
Reprinted from Better Roads Magazine
August 2003 |
