Construction Engineering and Repair of the Severely Cracked West Seattle bridge

Abstract

<p>The goal of this paper is to describe the deterioration progression through the lifetime of the West Seattle Bridge which led to its closure in March 2020 and to provide a summary of the rehabilitation and strengthening process. The main part of the paper focuses on the construction engineering phase of the rehabilitation and performed structural analysis. Detailed structural analysis was performed using advanced global shell element analysis model which was used to reveal the root causes of superstructure cracking and crack propagation in time. As a part of the construction engineering the superstructure was assessed in detail in all critical stages of strengthening and restrictive measures had to be taken to maintain sufficient level of safety during construction.</p>