The annual event,which draws bridge professionals from around the world,
focuses on bridge design, construction and maintenance. Sponsored by the
Pittsburgh-based Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, this year's
theme is New Perspectives on Bridges.
The keynote session begins Monday morning and will feature as session chairman
Eric S. Kline of KTA-Tator, Inc. Other speakers include Federico Peña,
Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation; J. Barry Stout, Pennsylvania
State Senator; and Ernst H. Petzold of Sverdrup Civil, Inc.
The featured state session will also be held on Monday. As the featured state, Minnesota delegates will deliver presentations on the following topics:
- Minnesota Bridges Past, Present and Future;
- Minnesota Bridge Research Activities: Prestressed Girders for the Future;
- Curved Steel Girder Research;
- The Rehabilitation of the Dartmouth Bridge;
- Managing the Bridge Scour Program with a Geographic Information System;
- North Central States Consortiums Approach to Partnering for Bridge Design and Fabrication Standardization; and
- Blatnik Bridge Reconstruction.
Monday's proprietary sessions will explore many topics including, aluminum
bridge decks, computerized approach to foundation inspection, new methods
for mounting prefabricated deck sections of a suspension bridge, the future
of bridge cables and high performance immersion coatings for bridge painting.
Tuesday's sessions will deal with long span bridges, construction, design,
and load testing. Some of the specific papers which will be presented on
these topics include Boston's New Northern Avenue Bridge; Design of the
Ma Wan Viaduct, Hong Kong; Design and Construction of the Coraopolls-Neville
Island Bridge; Cape Girardeau Bridge Over the Mississippi River; Effectiveness
of Seismic Isolation in Prestressed I-Girder Bridges; and Determining Material
Properties and Stress Limits on Historic Bridges.
Also available on Tuesday is IBC's popular Pittsburgh Bridge Tour. For the
past three years this tour has been a sell-out event. The tour will be hosted
by Dr. Steven Fenves of Carnegie Mellon University and will include stops
at several award-winning structures. A trip to the top of scenic Mount Washington,
which overlooks Pittsburgh, the "City of Bridges" will conclude
this event.
Wednesday's sessions will cover innovative design concepts, rehabilitation
and strengthening, and seismic design. Papers presented on these topics
include An Alternate Hanger System for Tied Arch Bridges; Low-Cost Maintenance
Painting by Overcoating on Kentucky Bridges; Seismic Design of Major Steel
Highway Bridges; Seismic Retrofit of Bridges in Illinois; Minimizing Premature
Transverse Cracking in Concrete Bridge Decks; and State-Wide Underwater
Bridge Inspections-The View Five Years Later.
In addition to the session, seminars on fiberglass composite bridges, steel
bridge superstructure-substructure connection, concrete bridge design and
steel bridge design will be offered.
The IBC Expo will open at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, June 3 and remain open throughout
the conference. Some of the exhibitors include the American Iron and Steel
Institute; Applied Bolting Technology; Bethlehem Structural Products; CON/SPAN
Bridge Systems; Contech Construction Products; Devoa Coatings Co.; The Fort
Miller Co.; Grace Construction Products; Harris Specialty Chemicals Inc.;
Haydon Bolts Inc.; Leap Software; Linear Dynamics; MDX Software; Monotube
Pile Corp.; Pittsburgh Rigging Co.; Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute;
Silicone Specialties Inc.; Swing-Lo Suspended Scaffold; TAMMS Industries;
Voss Engineering; Wasser High Tech Coatings; and Wheeling Corrugating Co.
For more information, contact the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, 337 Fourth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 261-0710; fax (412) 261-1606.
