Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Canada's reinforced concrete bridges are a critical part of the transportation infrastructure system. Many of these structures were built during the 1950s and are reaching a point in their service lives where careful assessment is required to ensure that they have the required capacity to ensure system resiliency. The tragic collapse of the Viaduc de la Concorde overpass in Laval, Quebec in 2006 demonstrated that constant vigilance is needed to ensure existing infrastructure is able to provide appropriate safety over its service life and that structures needing urgent repairs can be accurately identified. Until recently identifying these structures has been difficult due to a lack of accurate data about their performance and an inability to validate the numerical models used to assess their capacity. Recent advances in sensor technology such as the development of fibre optic strain sensors, thermal imaging devices and digital image analysis now make it possible to gather more comprehensive performance data that take into account issues such as sustained loading and thermal effects. Similar advances in numerical modeling of reinforced concrete structures, when coupled with this data, will allow bridges to be assessed to a level of accuracy that was previously not possible. A series of experiments will be conducted using the unique facilities available at the partner institutions to determine the effects of both temperature and sustained loading on reinforced concrete elements. These experiments will also allow for the further development of fibre optic and digital image based strain monitoring technologies for use with reinforced concrete structures. Models will then be developed for use in numerical analysis and a field installation of the complete system on a bridge will be the start of a long-term validation program. This multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional project will seek to develop and combine these technologies so that the safety and security of Canada's bridge network can be maintained over the long-term. This project will train 5 Ph.D. students, one post-doctoral fellow and 2 technicians in a field which will be of critical importance in both Canada and abroad in the coming decades.