Document Library

As numerous tunnels in the United States began to show signs of considerable deterioration, it became necessary to develop a Tunnel Management System to guide highway and rail transit tunnel owners. This manual provides specific information for the maintenance and rehabilitation of tunnels; provides specific recommendations for performing preventive maintenance to the tunnel structure, mechanical systems, electrical elements, track systems, and miscellaneous appurtenances; and offers general procedural recommendations for making structural repairs to various types of tunnel liner materials.

The thirteenth installment in the pavement preservation checklist series, focusing on the procedure for slurry seal application.

The tenth installment in the pavement preservation checklist series, focusing on the procedure for full-depth repair of Portland cement concrete pavements.

The nineth installment in the pavement preservation checklist series, focusing on the procedure for partial-depth repair of Portland cement concrete pavements.

The eighth installment in the pavement preservation checklist series, focusing on the procedure for dowel bar retrofit for Portland cement concrete pavements.

The seventh installment in the pavement preservation checklist series, focusing on the procedure for diamond grinding of Portland cement concrete pavements.

This synthesis may be useful to bridge owners and consulting engineers engaged in the design, inspection, and management of bridges with fracture-critical details, as a guide to present specifications and engineering judgment. It focuses on the inspection and maintenance of bridges with fracture-critical members (FCMs), as defined in the AASHTO "LRFD Bridge Design Specifications." The objectives of this report were to survey and identify gaps in the literature; determine practices and problems with how bridge owners define, identify, document, inspect, and manage bridges with fracture-critical details; and identify specific research needs. Among the areas examined were: inspection frequencies and procedures; methods for calculating remaining fatigue life; qualification, availability, and training of inspectors; cost of inspection programs; instances where inspection programs prevented failures; retrofit techniques; fabrication methods and inspections; and experience with FCM fractures and problems details. This synthesis contains information obtained from a survey distributed to bridge owners and consultant inspectors (72 state, provincial, and international departments of transportation and agencies), a literature search, and targeted interviews. Useful responses were received from 34 states and three Canadian provinces.

This synthesis identifies and explains various inspection and maintenance techniques for bridge stay cable systems. It discusses both short- and long-term approaches. Topics cov- ered included methods for inspections and assessments, including nondestructive testing and evaluation procedures; repair and retrofit; methods for control of cable vibrations, including rain–wind vibrations; stay cable fatigue and failure; effectiveness of various inspection and repair methods; limitations of available technologies; and trends and recommendations for future study.

The Asset Management in Planning and Operations Peer Exchange was held on September 7-8, 2004. It was sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and hosted by the Transportation Research Board (TRB). Asset Management (AM) in planning and operations was selected as the peer exchange focus because of the expanding role of AM as a comprehensive approach to managing agency resources and transportation systems. In addition, the benefits associated with the application of AM principles underscored AM as an area of critical importance to the transportation field. The goal of the AM peer exchange was to gather additional information about the state of the practice and to identify research needs and potential areas for innovation. Lance Neumann, Cambridge Systematics, Inc., began the peer exchange with a brief overview of available AM resources and observations from state department of transportation (DOT) implementation of AM. Kirk Steudle, MI DOT, gave an update on the AASHTO subcommittee on Asset Management. Peer exchange participants applauded the efforts of the AASHTO subcommittee but encouraged the inclusion of cities, counties, and metropolitan planning organizations in the effort to expand the adoption of AM practices. Dave Geiger, FHWA Office of Asset Management, discussed recent efforts to further integrate AM principles into existing FHWA offices and reported on the FHWA-supported AM education efforts. Finally, Sue McNeil, University of Illinois at Chicago, reported on recent TRB Asset Management Committee activities. This report serves to document and further distribute the insights raised during the meeting. To facilitate discussion, each participant was asked to answer a set of questions before coming to the peer exchange. The participant answers to the AM questions are contained in Section 2 of this report along with a summary of the written responses. Section 3 presents the key themes discussed, notable agency accomplishments, and potential areas for innovation. The appendix contains a list of peer exchange attendees.

This fourth volume of NCHRP Report 525: "Surface Transportation Security" will be of interest to state department of transportation and highway authorities with responsibility for state-level program planning and policy, asset (e.g., bridge and tunnel) management, and security. The law-enforcement community and emergency responders are essential in risk-management planning and should be familiar with the concepts in this course. In federal agencies, security decision makers, field office representatives, and bridge and tunnel engineers could benefit from this course. In general, engineers, planners, and researchers involved in security assessment and planning would find the concepts in this course beneficial.

This project developed two software tools to support tradeoff analysis for transportation asset management. The CD-ROM, which accompanies National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 545, contains the software tools, AssetManager NT and AssetManager PT, as well as their Users Guides. Also included are the two appendices to the report, Appendix A: State Interview Summaries and Appendix B: Review of Existing Tools.