These ‘bridges To Nowhere’ May Help Avert Future Disasters

In a Town of Ashford field, thousands of feet away from the closest residence and disconnected from any roads, will stand Western New York’s own “bridges to nowhere.”

But the 250-ton, 7-foot-tall twin spans won’t be used as political fodder in any upcoming campaigns. Instead, they will find life as an earthquake testing ground.

The University at Buffalo and Calspan are collaborating to build the two bridges, a $750,000 project funded primarily by a $400,000 state grant, that will aid research to prevent bridge collapses during disasters and help restore the country’s aging infrastructure.

Starting next summer, once a week for five years, a device connecting the two spans at Calspan’s field testing site will push them apart and then release them, simulating an earthquake. The stress from the bridges’ bearings will be recorded each week, as weather and time take a toll on the structure.

Andre Filiatrault, director of UB’s Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, said this is the first project where bearings on a real-life bridge will be monitored over a period of time.

“These kinds of testings are very important because you can’t do it in a lab,” said Filiatrault, also a professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering at UB. “No one has ever done this at this scale over a large period of time.”

The earthquakes will be the same intensity each week, he said. The goal of the project is to monitor how the wear and tear affects the bridges over time.

Internet lines and surveillance cameras will allow the weekly tests to be administered from the earthquake center at UB’s Amherst campus, 40 miles away.

Western New York’s four seasons, varying temperatures and temperate climate are ideal for the project, Filiatrault said. The site’s weather station will provide data for each weekly test.

If the project took place in a region with less diverse weather, like California or Florida, the results could not be applied to bridge code revisions across the country. But since the region gets a taste of all types of weather, the conclusions from the project will contribute to bridge revisions everywhere, he said.

“This bridge is going to have an incredible educational aspect to it,” Filiatrault said.

Undergraduate engineering classes will take field trips to the site to study the structure and design of the bridges, while two to three graduate students will conduct extensive research at the site each year.

While Filiatrault said there’s always a risk of collapse when simulating an earthquake, the controlled setting, and the equal intensity of each simulation should minimize the odds of the scenario.

Dynamic Isolation Systems provided the bearings for the project, and Hubbell Galvanizing near Utica donated the girders, which cost nearly $300,000.

In addition to lending its 681- acre site for the experiment, Calspan will give engineering support services to the project