Tag: National Highway Institute

What Is Bridge Scour? Why Should You Care?

The most common cause of bridge failures is from floods scouring bed material surrounding bridge foundations. What is scour? Simply put, scour is the engineering term for the erosion of soil surrounding a bridge foundation (piers and abutments). Bridge scour occurs when fast-moving water around a bridge removes sediment from… Read More »

Understanding Highway Hydraulics Keeps Bridges, People Safe

By Pete Haug, PE One of the principles of engineering is that water always wins. Whether contained in a river or falling in a rainstorm, water finds a way to infiltrate basements, saturate soils – and undermine bridges. The most common cause of bridge failures is from floods scouring bed material surrounding bridge foundations. What… Read More »

Inspectors Make Sure Gorgeous Bridges Are Safe Bridges

By Rick Maslyn, CBI MSN.com recently compiled a listing of “Gorgeous Photos of Bridges in Every State.” The photos range from suspension and cable-stayed bridges crossing major water bodies to pedestrian bridges in parks. What unites these and most of the approximately 600,000 structures in the United States is that they are safe because they… Read More »