(intense tones)
- [Narrator] Corrosion of infrastructure in Texas
is an ongoing challenge
costing TxDOT tens of millions of dollars a year.
Different techniques are used to mitigate corrosion,
but due to our variant climate statewide,
the most cost-effective strategies
for each area are not well-defined.
The Texas Department of Transportation
and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute
have developed a decision-making tool
to better choose corrosion mitigation strategies
across the state, allowing for more effective use
of transportation funding.
- About 40 years ago, we really started, as a agency,
we started to be concerned about
durability of our structures.
And, so we actually started taking measures
that were hopefully gonna be extend the life
of our structures significantly.
- Corrosion is a big issue
and it also causes a lot of cost to infrastructure.
And TxDOT wants to have a tool in order to determine
what is a good corrosion prevention mitigation method
for our bridges.
- We designed 'em and said
let's say to last 75 to a hundred years
with the expectation they're actually gonna be in service
much longer than that.
So we're looking at bridges, in this project,
20 to 35 years old.
- We visited over 100 bridges all over Texas,
so from El Paso, Amarillo, Houston,
we visited bridges in Corpus Christi, Austin, San Antonio.
And we took a lot of non-destructive measurements,
like ultrasonic, like ground-penetrating radar,
like infrared thermography.
We also took samples from these bridges,
like concrete cores.
We also took paint samples with us
and we further looked at them in the lab.
And with all that information,
we came up with a decision tool
from what is the best mitigation,
corrosion mitigation prevention method,
in what particular region of Texas.
- We see that certain areas of the state obviously
have a longer life expectancy,
just based on pure looking at the numbers.
The panhandle of the state is by far
the most severe exposure condition we have in the state.
So the researchers did focus a lot of the attention
on the panhandle, North Texas, and then we,
and then particularly, we wanted to look in the,
kind of the northeast quadrant of the state,
because we think of the issue of having higher moisture
in that area is also a durability concern,
especially with some of the reinforcement
that we've used in our concrete.
One of the things this research did
that was quite beneficial actually,
produced a document called the Risk Exposure Map.
That document will be something
that all districts will be able to have access to,
will be part of potentially our bridge design manual.
- Having this decision tool gives Texas
the opportunity to pick
the most cost effective corrosion prevention mitigation
technique for our bridges,
and that leads to less maintenance,
it leads to less potential traffic or closures of bridges,
and therefore, less traffic jams.
- [Narrator] For more information
and to find the publication for this project,
please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.