Media cover UMaine, DOT collaboration to assess bridges
WABI (Channel 5) and WVII (Channel 7) reported on a collaboration between researchers and students from the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center and the Maine Department of Transportation to assess the health of bridges around the state. This summer, five bridges are being evaluated to determine their capacity and lifespan. Graduate students were working with DOT crews July 25 in Franklin testing the Card Mill Stream bridge, media reported. “We are really just trying to measure how it behaves under heavy truck loads, and the data we get combined with engineering calculations that we do later can tell us what the real capacity of the bridge is,” Bill Davids, a UMaine professor of civil and environmental engineering, told WVII. “This data can be generalized to other bridges of the same type and help the DOT prioritize what needs to be worked on and what doesn’t.” UMaine has been studying and testing about five bridges a year since 2012, WABI reported.