| In recent years it has been realized that our nation's bridges are deteriorating at an alarming rate. Many bridges are not reaching their expected service life. This problem can most often be traced to deterioration mechanisms that are facilitated by the ingression of water into the concrete. These mechanisms include freeze-thaw deterioration, alkali-silica reaction, sulfate attack and steel reinforcement corrosion. By incorporating high performance concrete (HPC) innovations into the bridge decks, many states have been able to mitigate these deteriorating effects and are even able to expect a design life in the range of 75–100 years.;These HPC's utilize methods such as the addition of pozzolans and slag cement as well as improved curing procedures to attain the results desired by the designer. Arkansas has already seen the completion of its first HPC bridge deck and is planning to specify further use in the near future. The purpose of this project is to formulate, test and verify several HPC mix designs to be used in bridge decks around the state as well as examine the performance of the existing HPC bridge deck. |
