The Department of Transportation (DOT) is required to maintain the nations bridges and ensure their safety. This involves testing bridges to determine if they are capable of handling the live loads resulting from current traffic conditions. Our Phase I R&D efforts have developed a working handheld microcomputer instrument providing a simple user friendly interface and capabilities for rapidly and reliably screening bridge members for live loads. As this research progressed it became apparent that additional features and functions could be added to the basic unit and retain the ease of use for the instrument. During Phase II an enhanced prototype instrument will be developed and evaluated by users under conditions normally encountered when testing bridges. This final stress test instrument will include enhanced features and functions including collection of live loads from single and multiple truck passages, display of load waveforms, load histograms and limited statistical analysis of a number of events. These features will increase the number of potential users for the final product. Completion of these efforts will provide a field qualified prototype instrument capable of measuring live loads in bridges for single or multiple events. Thus, subsequent production units can be easily used by highway maintenance engineers in rapidly screening our nations highway bridges for safety.Anticipated Results Potential Commercial Applications of Results:The principal commercial application for a portable stress gauge is in screening for stress levels in highway bridges. Users include Federal, State and Local government highway maintenance departments. Other applications include independent test laboratories and in various construction industries, such as, steel structure buildings, oil rigs and ships.
