The Delaware
Department of Transportation began preparations Tuesday to apply a
set of 500-pound steel Band-Aids to a cracked girder in the I-95
bridge across the Brandywine in Wilmington.
The $500,000 repair could be completed as early as today with no
significant disruption to traffic, said Transportation Secretary
Nathan Hayward III.
The work comes about two months after bird-watcher Ed Bried
spotted the 7-foot crack in an 8-foot tall support girder in the
north span of the highway.
DelDOT officials said the crack could have created a serious
accident or even a disaster on I-95 if it had not been caught in
time.
Hayward visited the site Tuesday and praised the work of DelDOT
employees, contractors and the University of Delaware's Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering for designing a quick, cost-effective
and lasting fix.
The repair also required approvals from Delaware Department of
Natural Resources and Environmental Control, the Army Corps of
Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration. "We are just
enormously pleased and proud at how everyone came together," Hayward
said.
In order to bolt the steel plates to the crack and restore
structural integrity, a set of 100-ton jacks will be used to raise
the bridge about 2 inches. And to support those jacks, DelDOT
contractors placed eight, 6-ton concrete pilings in the Brandywine
and built a pair of 63-foot tall towers on top of them to reach the
damaged portion of the bridge. Contractors also used 1,000 tons of
rock to create an isthmus connecting the shore to the pilings, with
pipes underneath to allow water to pass through.
It all will be removed when the repair work is complete.
The only other option, said Hayward, would have been to replace
the 125-foot long girder, which would have taken months longer and
possibly closed the bridge. "I don't even want to think about the
cost," he said, adding it would have been in the millions.
DelDOT officials believe the crack was created by a faulty
welding job when the bridge was built. Three welds came together
near where the crack formed and created "a textbook flaw" said Jiten
K. Soneji, DelDOT bridge design engineer. Holes have now been
drilled in other parts of the bridge to relieve stress and prevent
similar flaws from developing into cracks, he said.
DelDOT had been repainting the bridge and renovating the median
and side railings when the crack was discovered. That work is
scheduled to be completed in November or December.
Reach Sean O'Sullivan at 324-2777 or at mailto:sosullivan@delawareonline.com
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