Girder Inspections

Today, my boss and I flew to Salt Lake City, UT to inspect the girders for our bridge as they were being fabricated. To begin, the workers place and tension steel cables that will be cemented into the girder (seen above).

Then, they place rebar that will help prevent cracking in the concrete.

Finally, they place forms an pour the concrete, load after load until the form is full. They let it cure for a few days before stripping the forms and starting the process over with the next girder.

These girders look good from afar, and are structurally sound, but the outer appearance needed a LOT of help........

see what I mean?!!

This is the area in UT, it is beautiful, but is was sooooo windy. I actually got windburn from being outside all day in the 40 mph winds.

We got the opportunity to tour another girder plant in the area in the afternoon. This plant was larger and a much smoother operation.

This is what the surface of their girders looked like just stripped from the forms. Much nicer than the girders we have.

This is what their rebar and tensioned steel cable looked like. They have forms they can place all along the girder bed, so they can have 3 different girders going at the same time on one bed. At the other plant, they could only work on one girder at a time.

They use these trucks to pump concrete into the forms. They use self consolidated concrete which is very liquid, it has a slump of 12" (this means it is like soup).

All in all, our trip to UT went well. Our girders will need some finish work before they can be delivered, but it looks like the will be in alright shape.

We flew back at 5 pm (to Vegas), and I need to go to bed so I can get up for work in the morning. I just wanted to share a cool day at work with you all! Good night :)