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BRIDGE REHABILITATION HIGHWAY 563 OVER HIGHWAY 1

PROJECT OWNER: Alberta Transportation
PROJECT LOCATION: Hwy 1 / Hwy 563, west of Calgary
PROJECT SCHEDULE: May 2018 to August 2019
PROJECT VALUE: $3,540,000

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

 This project involved the rehabilitation of the existing bridge carrying Highway 563 over Highway 1 just west of Calgary. The work included demolition of the entire concrete superstructure including the HPC deck, curbs, deck joints, bridgerail and wing walls. The girders were salvaged with strengthening plates added, nelson studs welded on and the girders sandblasted then repainted in certain areas. A new concrete deck was poured providing an 11m wide driving surface for two lane traffic. New approach slabs were poured, bridgerail installed and asphalt tied into the new bridge deck. The bridge has a finished HPC concrete driving surface instead of the typical asphalt overlay to reduce the dead load on the existing structure. 

After removing the concrete deck, we uncovered extensive corrosion on the top of the flange of the girders. Dealing with this corrosion caused significant delays and an immense extra work effort. To fix the corrosion, extra work involved sandblasting the girder flange, washing the girders, adding more strengthening plates in places with significant section loss and grinding the girder flange smooth. The extra work ended up pushing the deck pour well into October forcing us to heat and hoard the entire bridge to pour the bridge deck, curbs, deck joints, wing walls, approach slabs and patching of the back walls. 

Safety played a big role in this project as traffic was accommodated underneath the bridge on Highway 1 during the duration of the job. The crew worked many nightshifts when Highway 1 access was needed or where it was too dangerous to demolish the structure during the day due to the significant traffic volumes. 

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