Breathing New Life Into Old Bridges

This article, written by Matt Shipman, was first published on June 5.  

There are hundreds of bridges across North Carolina — and thousands across the country — that are, frankly, in rough shape.

They can’t carry as much weight as they used to, and transportation officials can’t replace them as quickly as they’d like. But researchers from NC State have come up with a way to retrofit many of these bridges — restoring their lost capacity and buying planners time to put a long-term solution in place.

McCoy’s retrofitting solution takes as little as one day to implement and lengthens the lifespan of a bridge by up to five years. That gives the NC Department of Transportation much-needed time to plan their next move — and keeps us safely on the road.

To be clear, we’re not talking about massive highway bridges designed to carry 40-ton loads. We’re talking about bridges designed to carry loads of 25 tons or less, which are found everywhere from country roads to urban thoroughfares.

Read the rest of the article and view a video here.