Highway Bridge Inspection: State-of-the-Practice Survey

The congressionally mandated National Bridge Inspection Program requires states to inspect periodically all highway bridges on public roads, among other activities; visual inspection (VI) is the primary tool used to perform these inspections. A survey was conducted to help determine current policies and practices that may affect the accuracy and reliability of VI. The survey had three main objectives: to compile a “state of the practice” for bridge inspection, particularly as it pertains to VI; to gather information about bridge inspection management to study how inspection management may influence the reliability of inspections; and to gather data about the current use of nondestructive evaluation technologies and to identify current and future research needs. State departments of transportation, local departments of transportation, and select bridge inspection contractors participated in the survey. Conclusions drawn from this study indicate that the use of nondestructive evaluation has increased since 1993 and that the use of American Society of Nondestructive Testing Level III–certified personnel is increasing. VI was cited as the most frequently used nondestructive evaluation technique; however, vision testing for inspectors is almost nonexistent. Typically, professional engineers were not on site for inspections. State departments of transportation indicated a large demand for future research into the nondestructive evaluation of prestressed concrete superstructures and concrete decks.