Strain Monitoring of Bridges During Paving Operations (05-0887)**
Eric G. Feldblum, Connecticut Department of Transportation
Paul F. D'Attilio, Connecticut Department of Transportation
John T. DeWolf, University of Connecticut

The Connecticut Department of Transportation, Division of Research, and the University of Connecticut Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering are working together in a Federal Highway Administration Research Project to implement long-term monitoring systems on a network of bridges in the State of Connecticut. Expertise and equipment purchased for these studies has also been utilized to perform short-term studies for the Department to assist in their management of their bridge infrastructure. One of these studies has involved strain monitoring of highway bridges during the passage of extremely heavy loads that occur during paving operations with new equipment. There has been concern that the equipment has the potential to over stress some bridges on interstate highways. As a result, short-term monitoring has been used to determine the live load stresses in bridges during the paving operations using a Material Transfer Vehicle (MTV). The field studies have demonstrated that the bridges monitored during the study were not compromised during the paving operations.