Connecticut Department of Transportation Climate Change and Extreme Weather Vulnerability Pilot Project Final Report

This report presents the results of a Climate Resilience Pilot Project conducted by Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) and sponsored in part by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). CTDOT was awarded a pilot to conduct a systems-level vulnerability assessment of bridge and culvert structures six feet to 20 feet in length from inland flooding associated with extreme rainfall events. The project focused on structures in the northwest corner of the state. The Department chose to conduct a vulnerability assessment of inland flooding because in recent years extreme precipitation events have been more frequent and intense, resulting in damage to the Department\u2019s infrastructure in several locations in the State. While this damage has not been significantly widespread, it poses safety concerns and can be costly to repair or replace. The Scope of Work for this project included the following main elements: data collection and field review, hydrologic and hydraulic evaluation, criticality assessment and hydraulic design criteria evaluation. Identification of structures six feet to 20 feet in length in the northwest corner of the state and data collection was accomplished using the state\u2019s bridge inventory. This inventory included over 176 structures on the state system. This inventory was pared down to 60 structures identified for field evaluation. Of the 60 identified for field evaluation, 52 were selected for hydrologic and hydraulic evaluations

Railway bridge structural health monitoring and fault detection: state-of-the-art methods and future challenges

Railway importance in the transportation industry is increasing continuously, due to the growing demand of both passenger travel and transportation of goods. However, more than 35% of the 300,000 railway bridges across Europe are over 100-years old, and their reliability directly impacts the reliability of the railway network. This increased demand may lead to higher risk associated with their unexpected failures, resulting safety hazards to passengers and increased whole life cycle cost of the asset. Consequently, one of the most important aspects of evaluation of the reliability of the overall railway transport system is bridge structural health monitoring, which can monitor the health state of the bridge by allowing an early detection of failures. Therefore, a fast, safe and cost-effective recovery of the optimal health state of the bridge, where the levels of element degradation or failure are maintained efficiently, can be achieved. In this article, after an introduction to the desired features of structural health monitoring, a review of the most commonly adopted bridge fault detection methods is presented. Mainly, the analysis focuses on model-based finite element updating strategies, non-model-based (data-driven) fault detection methods, such as artificial neural network, and Bayesian belief network–based structural health monitoring methods. A comparative study, which aims to discuss and compare the performance of the reviewed types of structural health monitoring methods, is then presented by analysing a short-span steel structure of a railway bridge. Opportunities and future challenges of the fault detection methods of railway bridges are highlighted

Financial report - Connecticut Department of Transportation.

Report year ends June 30.Mode of access: Internet

Short Line Safety Institute: 2022 Systematic Review [Research Results]

F33315-86-C-5169The Short Line Safety Institute (SLSI) is dedicated to the continuous improvement of safety and safety culture across all short line and regional railroads in the United States. Strengthening a railroad\u2019s safety culture may result in less frequent or severe accidents and create a safer working environment. SLSI defines safety culture as the shared values, actions, and behaviors that demonstrate a commitment to safety over competing goals and demands, based on the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Safety Council\u2019s safety culture definition (Morrow & Coplen, 2017)