Steel Orthotropic Deck Systems – Ideal Solution for 200 Year Bridges

Time dependent deterioration of bridge decks, directly subjected to: repeated abrasive loading from passing vehicles; the elements of weather; and winter maintenance agents, is the key challenge to achieving a 200 Year Bridge Design. In-service performance and laboratory tests over the past several decades have demonstrated that the steel orthotropic deck is the only system likely to accomplish this goal. Nevertheless, implementation of this deck system has been mostly limited to long span signature bridges, movable bridges, and temporary structures. The primary impediments to more wider application of orthotropic decks are lack of robust standards, increased efforts required for advanced analysis and design, relatively high initial cost owing to intensive fabrication, and most importantly due to concerns regarding higher possibility of in-service fatigue cracking from a large number of welded connections. This manuscript presents a standard deck design, developed based on the lessons learnt from a number of orthotropic bridge decks implemented in the greater New York region and the knowledgebase accumulated over the years from research and service performance of this deck around the world, which can be widely implemented as a prefabricated modular system towards durable, sustainable and life-cycle cost-effective design of the 200 Year Bridge.