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.

Learning Objectives:

• Basic types of bridges represent a majority of the highway, railroad, and pedestrian bridges.
• Primary components of a bridge structure.
• Elements of deterioration on concrete bridges.
• Elements of deterioration in steel bridges.
• The seven bridge failures cases presented this course highlight a variety of causes that led to structural failures. In each of the seven failures there are valuable lessons to be learned. These lessons should be used by designers to build stronger and better bridges with longer service lives.
• Better understanding how and why bridge failures occur and to apply the lessons learned in failures to design and build better bridges, of all types, that will not fail.
• Preventing future bridge failures: inspection and maintenance.