The record-breaking precipitation in BC and the Pacific Northwest causes major destruction to bridges, embankments, roads, and rail corridors. The BC Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure posted some photos today that are quite dramatic. See below for the embedded version. Thanks to Professor Jean Hutchinson for sharing the link.
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Evaluation of Bridge Scour Research: Geomorphic Processes and Predictions
TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Web-Only Document 177: Evaluation of Bridge Scour Research: Geomorphic Processes and Predictions explores the impact of long-term aggradation and degradation, and lateral river channel migration, on highway structures. […]
Geotechnical Engineer Dives to Inspect Bridges
The Progressive Engineer website has an interesting article profiling Colwyn Sayers, a geotechnical engineer with the Lexington, Kentucky office of Stantec. His specialty is inspecting underwater bridge foundations which requires either wetsuit or drysuit diving using topside air sources. Occasionally a hyperbaric chamber is required as well. (Photo credit: Progressive Engineer)
On a typical dive, Sayers looks for signs of deterioration that may cause instability or even collapse of the bridge. This includes scour, undermining from flowing water that erodes the streambed, deterioration, cracks, section loss, and impact and abrasion damage from trees. Tree debris caught in the bridge leads to scour and erosion. “It depends on the construction type as well as the materials on the bridge,” he states.
Oregon Landslide News and Map
This is definitely the season for landslides, mudslides, debris flows and other mayhem in Oregon and elsewhere in the pacific northwest. It seems like every time I turn around there is another Google Alert in my inbox about a landslide related issue in that area. Having a hard time keeping up with it all, I decided to try something new. Click through to see a map of automatically updated landslide news in Oregon. Lets call it a Beta…so we’ll see if it works out. If it does, maybe I’ll try something similar for other areas or other items that tend to make it into the news. (Photo by Ross William Hamilton/The Oregonian)