InTrans / Aug 14, 2018
Performance Monitoring of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Abutment Timber Bridges
The current National Bridge Inventory (NBI) includes nearly 475,000 bridge structures.1 As part of the Bridge of the Future Initiative, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) developed the Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil (GRS) Integrated Bridge System (IBS). Geosynthetic-reinforced soil walls (originally referred to as geotextile-reinforced walls) were first constructed by the U.S. Forest Service in 1974. The GRS-IBS uses reinforced soil as part of an economical bridge system. The GRS-IBS was developed to be of lower cost, faster construction, and better durability than other single-span bridge construction. Typically, steel and concrete bridge superstructures have been used with GRS-IBS. To date, only one GRS-IBS superstructure is built using wood. This project aims to design, construct, and monitor in-service performance of glulam girder bridge superstructure and wood timber facing elements in conjunction with a GRS-IBS.