CTL Engineering, Inc.

CTL Engineering, Inc.
An Employee Owned Company

www.ctleng.com

August-October 2006 Newsletter

Connecting Ohio and Kentucky

The U.S. Grant Bridge
Excerpts Courtesy of www.dot.state.oh.us


CTL Engineering is pleased with our involvement and the significant role we played during construction of the U.S. Grant Bridge in Portsmouth, Ohio. The C.J. Mahan Construction Company of Grove City, Ohio, was awarded a contract in spring of 2001 to construct the new bridge and was CTL’s primary client for our work on the project. CTL authored the project Quality Control Plan for Mahan with an addendum to include Concrete Maturity Testing. CTL also provided concrete mix designs including maturity testing and field and laboratory testing of all cast-in-place concrete used for the bridge from the top of the caissons to the top of the towers. The U.S. Grant Bridge replacement project was initiated in 1992 by the Ohio Department of Transportation, which sought to erect a new bridge carrying U.S. Route 23 from Portsmouth, Ohio, to South Shore, Kentucky.

Built in 1927 and used as a toll bridge, the U.S. Grant Bridge was acquired by ODOT from the now-defunct Ohio Bridge Commission in 1974. From 1977 to 1996, more than $9 million was spent to rehabilitate various sections of the bridge. Following numerous inspections that have been conducted since that time, the bridge was found to be functionally obsolete and structurally deficient for current and future.

In order to maintain a bridge in this location, it was determined that further rehabilitation or replacement of the bridge would be necessary. The costs associated with additional rehabilitation projects were approximately $28 million, with additional funds required to continue to maintain the existing bridge over time. In addition, the existing bridge has two, 11-foot lanes with a 6'7" sidewalk and carries only 60 percent of Ohio's legal load for trucks. Today's standards require that the structure have two, 12-foot lanes with two-foot shoulders and that it carry 150 percent of the legal load. Therefore, it was deemed necessary and financially prudent to replace the existing bridge rather than rehabilitate it.

The new U.S. Grant Bridge is a steel-based, cable-stayed structure that includes two, 12-foot lanes, wide shoulders, stainless steel tower caps and aesthetic lighting. The replacement project is the department’s first completed endeavor to construct a cable-stayed bridge in the state, and it is the first bridge to be constructed across the Ohio River by ODOT. The total cost to construct the new U.S. Grant Bridge is approximately $38 million.

Although the original completion date was slated for June 2004, it was revised to October 31, 2006 following weather-related delays and design changes that were made in the construction plans. This date would have been extended significantly without the use of concrete maturity testing by Mahan and CTL to expedite placement closure pours for the precast concrete deck segments and stressing of the post-tension tendons in the deck.

After much anticipation, the long-awaited new U.S. Grant Bridge has been opened to traffic. The bridge was opened on October 16, 2006, following a ceremony hosted by the Ohio Department of Transportation, the city of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Area Chamber of Commerce.

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