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(air swooshing)

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- [Narrator] The seamless bridge concept

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originally proposed in Australia,

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eliminates expansion joints

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between the bridge and the pavement.

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Continuously reinforced
concrete pavement, or CRCP,

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is used to create a transition
zone between the bridge deck

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and the CRCP to reduce
long-term maintenance cost

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and improve durability of the bridge.

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The Center for Transportation Research

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recently completed a study
on the performance and design

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of Seamless bridge CRCP systems

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to closely analyze the behavior

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of seamless bridge pavement systems

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and propose general design recommendations

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for practical applications in the US.

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- Those traveling, public's
probably notices this,

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if you go over a bridge in
January when it's 20 degrees,

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there'll be kind of a
little bit louder bump,

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and that's because the bridge joint

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has opened up a little bit.

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But also that joint allows a
lot of corrosion causing agents

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to actually pass from
the bridge deck down into

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the girders and substructure elements

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leading potentially to corrosion issues.

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locking up of the joints and the bearings,

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they end up kind of impacting
the long-term behavior.

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- If we can develop a
bridge that is jointless,

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in fact, we have solved major percentage,

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we have eliminated a major
cause of corrosion in bridges.

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- The goal was to try
to look at the viability

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of using the seamless technology here

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and then to try to develop
a bond breaking element

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that you could put between the embankment,

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the foundation onto the embankment,

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and that slab that you're extending

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that allows the concrete slab
then to expand and contract.

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We started off by evaluating
various bond breakers

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in a smaller test setup to try to look at

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we could cast the concrete

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that would prevent the
concrete from bonding then

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with the base material that we have,

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and then we would subject
that to some shearing

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and get a measurement to
the coefficient of friction.

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So we did kind of find,
we think the bond breaker

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that we would need from that.

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And then we've also developed a

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pretty comprehensive design methodology.

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- What has been done now
is the laboratory study.

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So the next phase is to do
an actual implementation

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of this research on an actual bridge.

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With implementation,
we'll be able to monitor

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the performance and
correlate the field study

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with the laboratory result
that we have collected.

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- We think it'll improve the
ride quality on the bridge,

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but also long-term maintenance issues,

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the costs of maintaining
that bridge long term

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will be reduced.

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So there's a, we think good
viability on a wide range

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of Texas bridges where this might

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provide a very good solution.

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- [Narrator] For more information

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and to find the publications
for this project,

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please visit the Texas
DOT research library

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at the link shown below.