Rutgers University. Center for Advanced Infrastructure & Transportation

CAIT-UTC-026

Tech Report

United States

Rutgers University. Center for Advanced Infrastructure & Transportation

The inspection of installations of rebar and other embedded components in bridge deck construction is a tedious task for field inspectors, requiring considerable field time for measurement and verification against code requirement. The verification of rebar and dowel locations after placement of concrete is another difficult but important task. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is often used to verify the locations of dowels and rebar after the construction of bridge deck is completed. Although GPR is an effective method for this purpose, the discovery of quality problems, if there is any, associated with rebar installations is often too late to secure timely and cost efficient repair. There is a need for proactive quality control and assurance methods that can assist field inspectors to quickly inspect and monitor code compliance of installations of rebar and other embedded components before and during the placement of concrete. In this project, the utility of 3D laser scanning for quality control of bridge deck construction is investigated. We demonstrated the common workflow for field scan collection and data analysis for verifying bridge deck construction quality. We focused on a set of parameters that need to be monitored during bridge deck construction. The research results suggested that with careful planning and well designed workflow, 3D laser scanning is an effective method for controlling the quality of bridge deck construction, and state DOTs should consider incorporating 3D scanning as a proactive quality control methods.

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DTRT12-G-UTC16

US Transportation Collection