There are approximately 2000 two-girder steel bridges throughout the United States that are 35-40 years old and are subject to fracture due to age and climate. Investigation of the potential fracture condition will be pursued by this project, using the I- 40 bridge in New Mexico as a case study. The objective of this investigation are three-fold: 1. Investigate the after fracture behavior and the alternate load path present in a two-girder fracture critical bridge. 2. Perform field experiments and evaluation of a new promising nondestructive evaluation technique. 3. Develop a state-of-the-art bridge monitoring system. This monitoring system will be implemented on the new I-40 bridge in New Mexico.
