| Title | Remote Methods of Underwater Inspection of Bridge Structures |
|---|---|
| Record ID | 79328 |
| Personal Name Creator |
Bath, W. R. |
| Personal Name Contributor |
Rodriguez, Carlos M; Jones, Sterling; Bertoldi, David A.; Pearson, Donna |
| Corporate Creator | Sonsub Inc. |
| Corporate Contributor |
United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Infrastructure Research and Development |
| Publisher | United States. Federal Highway Administration |
| Publication Date | 19990701 |
| Language | English |
| Abstract | A portable trailer mounted bridge scour inspector was developed and tested under flood conditions for inspecting bridge scour in the vicinity of piers from the bridge deck. The bridge scour inspector features a remotely controlled arm to deploy a sonar probe in the water from a vehicle located on the bridge deck. The arm can be fixed in a cross section mode to take cross sections immediatedly upstream and downstream of a bridge or it can be maneuvered in the vicinity of piers including some distance under the bridge deck to inspect for deep local scour holes. Two servo motors constantly adjust the orientation of the sonar probe to maintain a vertical beam. A mechanical positioning system tracks the X,Y,Z coordinates of the sonar probe wherever it is in the water relative to some reference location on the pridge deck. The bridge scour inspector was field tested under low water condition in Texas and was field tested under extreme flood conditions in Georgia during the 1994 Tropical Storm Alberta flooding. Limitations of the bridge scour inspector include the max distance of 15 meters (50 feet) that the arm can be extended below the bridge deck to reach water, a minimum distance of 4.5 meters (15 feet) needed to avoid total submergence and possible malfunction of servo motor controls, and operation difficulties on truss type bridges because the arm must be retracted each time it passes an elevated obstruction. It is a viable bridge scour inspection device for many bridges during extreme flood conditions when it is too dangerous to put a boat in the water. A more sophisticated remotely controlled work station was designed conceptually and is desribed in the report but it was not fabricated for testing. This system could be used above and below the water surface to inspect and repair bridges. |
| Rosap ID | dot:54090 |
| Rosap URL | https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/54090 |
| TRT Terms | Scour; Inspection; Robotics; Bridges; Remote sensing; Underwater structures |
| Geographical Coverage |
United States |
| TRIS Online Accession No |
769429 |
| Contract Number | DTFH61-C-00060 |
| Report Number | FHWA-RD-99-100 |
| Resource type | Tech Report |
| URL | https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/79000/79300/79328/009232.pdf |
| Format | |
| Database | NTL Digital Repository |