Baltimore City Bridge Inspections
KPA was responsible for two cycles of inspection, evaluation, load rating and preparation of reports for over 300 Federal Aid and Non-Federal Aid bridges in the City of Baltimore. Bridge structure types included steel & concrete arches, steel through & deck trusses, steel plate & box (confined space inspection) girders, prestressed concrete beams carrying Interstate and City streets over waterways and land-based facilities. Also included were pedestrian facilities, fender systems and drainage structures. Utilizing the innovative InspectTech software, KPA prepared comprehensive inspection report s including Pontis and SI&A coding, repair recommendations and cost estimates.
Work also included the Hanover Street Bascule Bridge, a seventeen−span bridge built in 1916 and rehabilitated in 1970 and 1992. The structure consists of a two−leaf rolling lift bascule span over the navigable waterway, sixteen open spandrel Beaux Arts arch spans and a twenty−arcade span at the north end of the bridge. The Pennington Avenue Bridge is a dual steel girder bridge built in 1976 with sixteen westbound spans and fifteen eastbound spans including bascule spans over the navigable Curtis Creek. KPA performed in-depth NBIS inspection of the fracture critical elements of these bridges including electrical, mechanical, underwater inspection and soundings.
Work consisted of hands-on NBIS inspection of all elements of each bridge structure, including evaluation of fracture critical members, obtaining soundings for bridges crossing waterways and assessing scour damage, and underwater inspection of substructure units. Upon completion of the field inspection work, an inspection report was prepared for each bridge, including S.I. &A. forms and Pontis data collection, photographs, detailed descriptions of field findings, a list of anticipated remedial repairs including construction costs or recommendations for reconstruction or replacement of the bridge. Rating analyses and structural capacity evaluations were performed on an as-needed basis and when there is a significant change in the distress state of the bridge.
For this project KPA implemented the use of innovative software (InspectTech) that allowed the user to preload the previous inspection report including SI&A and Pontis forms. A draft inspection report was created in the field during the actual bridge inspection:
The forms were updated, photos were uploaded and defects were noted and/or verified on a laptop computer. The QA/QC for the inspection report was performed in the office before the inspection report was uploaded to an on-line server. The client was able to access the reports on the server and track the progress of the entire inspection project.