Conventional vs. Accelerated Bridge Construction

With nearly 150,000 bridges in the United States needing replacement, cost-effective methods such as Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) have been implemented to expedite and decrease cost over conventional construction methods. Conventional building methods require building a bridge on-site, closing, or detouring traffic to remove and replace the entire bridge structure. ABC is a method of prefabricating a bridge structure offsite, then removing a bridge structure and transporting and placing the new structure in place.

ABC is not a widely used method in the United States and does not have the trustworthiness that conventional bridge construction methods do. Therefore, when an ABC bridge fails (see a collapse in Florida in March 2018), public support is quickly damaged and slow to recover.

Assignment: From the provided resources on Blackboard, write a short paper comparing and contrasting conventional bridge construction vs ABC. Answer the following questions in your paper:

1.) Compare and contrast the two methods of construction, looking at cost, safety, and effect on the public.

2.) If you were with a bridge construction company, using ABC, how would you respond to a catastrophe and what evidence would you present to ensure to the public that ABC is safe?

3.) How much should be budgeted for each bridge in case of failure (see Chapter 10)? Costs and probabilities are summarized in the table below. Assume that failure would occur in year 25. Use an annually compounding interest rate of 4%.

ABC

Conventional

Direct cost to the company if the bridge fails

$75,000,000

$225,000,000

Indirect cost to the company if the bridge fails (loss of goodwill)

$100,000,000

$75,000,000

Probability of bridge failure

1/800

1/500

Your paper should be 700-800 words long. Please include a word count for the body of your paper at the end of your document in parentheses, as indicated in this handout. Submit your papers as a .docx file on Blackboard.

Your paper should include works cited page (APA or MLA-formatted) and in-line citations of the sources used.

(332 words – this word count begins at “Background” and excludes the title, points, and due date)

Use only the provided resources to write paper.

Accelerated Bridge Construction: Building Better Bridges

Feds fine contractors behind deadly FIU bridge collapse for ‘serious’ safety violations

More FIU bridge contractors settle collapse lawsuits

State of Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) in the United States

The Ordinary Engineering Behind the Horrifying Florida Bridge Collapse

FIU Bridge Collapse Due To Negligence, OSHA Claims: FIU Bridge Collapse Brings Up Design, Safety Concerns

A balance of risk and glory

Accelerated Bridge Construction Risk: A Contractor’s Perspective – 1 hour 3 minutes