California bridge receiving constant attention

The MISTRAS Group is handling a US$3.4 million contract for continuous structural health monitoring on the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. The client for this contract is the California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) and MISTRAS will be responsible for installing and operating the package. The system is being installed on the bridge in response to a fatigue defect found on a structural steel beam in a regularly scheduled inspection during a holiday closure in 2009.
May 29, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The 5774 MISTRAS Group is handling a US$3.4 million contract for continuous structural health monitoring on the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. The client for this contract is the 2451 California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) and MISTRAS will be responsible for installing and operating the package. The system is being installed on the bridge in response to a fatigue defect found on a structural steel beam in a regularly scheduled inspection during a holiday closure in 2009.

The bridge opened in 1936 and has one of the largest spans in the world, carrying some 250,000 vehicles/day at present. The MISTRAS system will remotely and continuously monitor 384 critical eye bars for the early detection of fatigue defects using its advanced real time software, listening to 640 strategically placed acoustic emission sensors mounted on the bridge's eye bars.

The package will automatically send a message alert to engineering personnel in the event of a flaw indication being detected, including its location. When delivered, this will possibly be the largest and most advanced automated structural health monitoring system in the world according to MISTRAS.
Road Structures

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Upgrading a busy A road link in the UK
    July 4, 2018
    The upgrade to the UK’s busy A14 route will address a significant traffic bottleneck - Mike Woof writes The UK is suffering badly from traffic congestion, a problem that is particularly severe in and around its major cities. Lack of investment in road construction over many years has resulted in a major backlog of work, while the country has seen growing vehicle numbers. To make matters worse, there have been few additions to the major road network since the late 1980s and early 1990s. And the combinatio
    Read More
  • Bridge monitoring technology
    July 1, 2019
    A new partnership between SGS and AIMSight is allowing fully remote continuous structural health monitoring (SHM) of bridges. This utilises using smart crack monitoring sensors and data analytics and is compliant with existing NDT standards. The new SGS AIMSight structural health monitoring solution provides continuous, real time monitoring of the health of critical assets to a higher level of precision than conventional SHM systems and structural inspection schemes. This serves as an early warning system
    Read More
  • PPRS Nice 2018: maintenance moves mountains
    June 22, 2018
    Strategic maintenance was a major theme at the second Pavement Preservation and Recycling Summit in Nice, France. The world is changing, mobility is changing and so roads must change and adapt for the future.” With this brief statement, Jacques Tavernier opened the second PPRS Summit. “At the same time there is a growing awareness of poor or non-existent maintenance for highways. The question for this conference is how to adapt road maintenance in the face of this challenge,” said Tavernier, in his role as
    Read More
  • Safety on 'The King's Highway
    February 23, 2012
    California State Route 82 in the United States, a major urban arterial, is part of the historic El Camino Real or The King's Highway, connecting the communities of San Jose and San Francisco in northern California. Consisting of two to three lanes in each direction with a median, on level terrain and tangent alignment, the route between Hickey Boulevard in Colma and Mission Road in south San Francisco carries 17,400 vehicles/day
    Read More

Highlighted Content