RESIDENT ENGINEERING INSPECTION FOR
MOVEABLE BRIDGE REHABILITATION

Henry W. Hessing, PE
Senior Project Officer
O’Brien Kreitzberg


Key words:::: Resident Engineer Moveable Bridge, Construction Inspection


Abstract: This paper describes resident engineering and construction inspection services for bridge rehabilitation projects to insure compliance with plans and specifications.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
· Using a hypothetical example, an owner intends to rehabilitate a moveable bridge that was constructed sixty or seventy years ago over a navigable waterway in New York City. The cross section has narrow lanes, some of which are out of service. The multi-span structure can be described as having concrete cellular spans, deck trusses, through trusses and a moveable, lift span. Similarly, the moveable part could be bascule, lift or swing bridge design. The owner wants a proposal for construction inspection and/or construction support services for deck replacement.

As consulting engineers, we can develop an approach to by identifying the key issues:

· What does the bridge link? What are the traffic characteristics? What is the vehicular and pedestrian maintenance of traffic scheme caused by construction rehabilitation?
· Will commercial or recreational marine traffic require planning and coordination? What are the Coast Guard requirements for maintaining marine traffic?
What are the Coast Guard’s material handling requirements?
· Does the bridge have several layers of lead/chromium based paint? The removal process must adhere to current environmental regulations, sensitivity to the waterway and the surrounding community.
· Rehabilitation of the bridge structural members including the moveable span will require expertise and manpower familiar with and capable of performing the required tasks in the bridge environs and the above constraints outlined.

Typical construction monitoring and construction support services are well defined by practice, the owner’s request for proposal and the consultant agreement. The technical approach presented herein will focus on the most important and critical issues involved in constructing the project.

2.0 TECHNICAL APPROACH

2.1 Construction Monitoring and Construction Support
To accomplish construction, a consultant will provide Construction Inspection and Construction Support services to the owner. The most important and critical issues are:

· An organization with a clear-cut chain of command and responsibilities;
· Qualified and sufficient staff;
· Quality Control/Quality Assurance (QA/QC) program;
· Complete familiarization with the construction documents and references, the work plan, construction schedule, and staging environs, and client expectations;
· Inspection, documentation, and Construction schedule; Long lead items; Community affairs/relations; Lift span balancing; Electrical installations;
Lead/chromium based paint removal and new coating.

2.2 Maintenance and Protection of Traffic (MPT)
For each construction stage, the MPT scheme is prescribed. Daily and holiday restrictions along with information and directional signs and protection devices to be used are included in the contract documents. The Resident Engineer will assure that lane closures signs and protective devices are installed, maintained and used as required to be effective. Any deviation or unsatisfactory results, such as excessive queuing, accidents or complaints will be recorded and analyzed. The owner will be notified immediately and the appropriate action(s) will be taken to correct the problem, first by the field staff, and if necessary by engaging construction support services.

2.3 Marine Traffic
Working over water requires sensitivity to two items. Is the bridge over a navigable waterway? Is there a possibility of water contamination resulting from the contractor’s operation?
Marine traffic must be maintained according to the mandates of federal law, which state that at no time can a navigable waterway be closed or restricted or can a horizontal clearance be reduced or altered without written permission. The consultant will monitor the contractor’s compliance with government regulations and see that he secures all permits. Other steps may include reviewing and making recommendations concerning the contractor’s “fail safe plan” to prevent debris from entering the waterway; posting an observer to notify workmen of a vessel’s approach; the installation of battery or power operated lights if the permanent bridge or fender navigational lighting cannot be maintained; and posting warning signs to mark the location of work platforms.

2.4 Construction Schedule
The contractor has primary responsibility for developing the detailed construction schedule. The Resident Engineer will review the schedule for conformance with the lead contract documents as to level of detail; activities included, i.e., procurement, delivery, and submittals; conformance and milestones. He will look for the schedule to recognize MPT stipulations, shop drawing status, and long lead items, seasonal weather conditions, and the contractor’s capabilities to complete the job. He will also review the schedule for a logical sequence of events, reasonableness of goals set, and opportunities for getting back on track. He will make recommendations for improvements.

2.5 Long Lead Items
Beginning with his initial review of the contract documents, the RE will identify long lead items including material and fabrications that take a long time to be delivered to the construction site as well as other intangible items that may have the potential of delaying construction. Such items may include permits; requests for information (RFIs) design changes, disputes, and undefined agreements, and the like. Potential long lead items will be closely correlated with the CPM schedule.

2.6 Community Affairs
To minimize the impact to the surrounding area, the RE will be proactive, monitor the project schedule, review actual progress made vs. the CPM, and assess deviations. He will communicate his findings with the Resident Engineering’s liaison Officer who will keep the public appraised of the project’s status.

2.7 Bascule, Lift or Swing Span Balancing
Before construction commence, the balance of the bridge must be verified, using strain gauge testing and electrical current readings on the drive motors. This will establish a benchmark accomplishing two objectives: 1) if the bridge is not balanced, immediate action can be taken to balance it; and 2)a reference will be established against which the bridge will be checked through all phases of construction. When the movable span is out of balance there may be serious effects on the operating systems; i.e., the bridge was originally designed to be slightly span heavy (the mass of the span is slightly more than the mass of the counter weight). This allows the bridge to remain firmly seated under live load. The mechanical and electrical systems were sized according to the designed imbalance. The electrical drives and motors are sized to overcome the AASHTO wind and Ice loads, friction forces, and the imbalance of the span. The counter weight ropes and sheaves were designed to withstand the forces generated under these conditions (the same is true for other components of the mechanical and electrical systems). When the span is further out of balance than intended, more force must be used to open and close the span. This translates into heavier loads on the operating machinery and the electrical system. If the bridge becomes too far unbalanced, it may not be possible to operate the movable span at all. The existing circuit breakers, drives and electric motors that move the bridge have an overload rating. If the forces to move the span exceed the overload ratings the electric drive system could fail. It will be the Resident Engineer’s responsibility to make sure that the contractor stays within safe operating limits of the drive system and within the specified ranges of the contract.
Critical to the safety of the entire project is keeping the span balanced. The contractor must record the weight and location of all members removed and added to the lift span in specific detail. This should be performed each day. The Resident Engineering staff will review this data on a daily basis and will confirm the information provided by the contractor with data supplied by the strain gauge system. In doing so, the span will be kept in balance throughout the entire project to the extent that a range of 1,000 to 10,000 lbs. weights will be kept at each corner of the lift span at all times. Within 24 hours of receiving such data from the contractor, the RE will assess the implications and confirm it by means of strain gauges if openings occur. He will advise the contractor of any adjustment he must make to bring the imbalance within the appropriate range in each location. Any serious situation, which cannot be quickly and easily addressed by the contractor, will be brought to the attention of the client’s Engineer immediately.

The post tensioning of the trunnion shafts must be performed in an accurate manner to ensure tension is gradually and evenly applied to the tensioning studs. This will ensure that the load is evenly distributed in the bearing plates and the trunnion shaft is properly post tensioned to minimize cycles of extreme fiber tension to prevent fatigue. The RE will oversee the entire post tension operation at each trunnion shaft, document each operation with listings of personnel present, sequences followed, problems encountered, and dates and times of each occurrence.
In addition to balancing the bridge, it is necessary to check that the total mass of the movable span does not exceed the limitations of the operating systems of the bridge. There will be many modifications to bridge structure under this contract i.e., addition of a median barrier, replacement stringers, grating, and other structural members. It is vital that the new dead load of the bridge remains within the safe operating limits of the operating systems.

2.8 Electrical Installations
Attention to detail and rigorous closeout of non-conformances are key to the success of an electrical system for it to be safe, complete and in a maintainable condition. The RE will ensure that all electrical work meets the established standards and codes, and progresses on schedule in a safe and orderly manner. The RE staff of inspectors must be familiar with the National Electric Code, and AASHTO Standards for Highways and Bridges.

In the hypothetical example, electrical work includes new 5,000-volt feeders, a manual transfer switch, a 5,000-volt switch gear, street lighting, new traffic gates, traffic gate bypass switches, a new traffic signal system, and the removal and reinstallation of limit switches on counter weight sheaves. To safely install the new lighting and gantry systems successfully, the RE will:

· Approve a construction sequence that removes conflicts between work items
· Review the contractor’s demolition work to prevent damage;
· Review the contractor’s pre-installation preparations;
· Monitor the receipt and storage of equipment in safe, secure and clean spaces;
· Monitor that the correct tools, equipment and method are used for handling
and installation of new systems;
· Inspect and check all work to monitor nonconformance;
· Work with the contractor during testing to ensure completeness; and
· Control the energizing of systems from source to load in set steps.

The RE will give particular attention to the manual operation of all operating mechanisms to make certain that they operate freely. He will monitor nicks or rings in conductors due to insulation stripping; grounding; conduct a cleanout and pull through test for conduit; expansion fittings across expansions joints; data sheets for installation materials; protection of cables during pull-in; identification of wire, cable, and terminations. The RE will monitor safety clearances around equipment; check the tightness of connections, insulation resistance testing; ensure protection of personnel from access to live equipment, and safety interlocking for the movable bridge control system. Balanced and smooth operation of new traffic warning gates; the incorporation of a traffic warning system with bridge controls; correct setting of cams and mounting of the removed counter weight sheave limit switches will be monitored. The RE team will check foot-candle illumination levels at roadways and sidewalks after new street lighting has been installed. The RE will monitor the safe transfer of main power with the new manual transfer switch; and will perform a complete functional test of the movable bridge interlocking and control system, utilizing normal and out of sequence testing.

Prior to testing the electrical-mechanical work of the span, it will be necessary to have permanent traffic gates operating. Additional MPT requirements may be required to provide for testing and debugging the mechanical, power and control systems.

2.9 Lead/Chromium Paint Removal and New Coating
The locations and extent of lead/chromium paint removal will be identified via visual inspection, sampling and testing. The RE will ensure the contractor is removing the lead/chromium paint in accordance with the contract documents, applicable laws, codes, rules and regulations, the OSHA lead in construction, standard 29CFR 1926.62 and applicable waste disposal regulations. He will oversee the lead/chromium removal process to ensure that all lead/chormium material is contained within the work area and that the contractor’s activities do not result in contamination with dust of any surrounding areas.

November 11th Reflections on September 11th

Subject: November 11th Reflections on September 11th

The destruction of the World Trade Center (Twin Towers) in New York City, and the partial destruction of The Pentagon, in Washington, D.C. by Islamic terrorists on September 11, 2001, was correctly labeled by our government an "act of war" against the American people. The method of attack, simultaneous hijackings of civilian aircraft, and the subsequent crashing of the aircraft into these targets, was an act of such unthinkable brutality that most Americans cannot fathom the degree of evil involved. We are not programmed to accept that human beings can be capable of imagining, planning, and then carrying out the mass-murder of thousands of men, women, and children who were guilty only of going about their daily routines. These victims were civilians, they never had the opportunity to defend themselves, and they never saw the faces of their killers.

In war, the participants who wage the battles must be prepared to die for their beliefs. Their families and loved ones must understand that the soldier is in danger at all times, during conflict. In Vietnam, over 58,000 soldiers, both men and women, gave their lives in service to America.
Another 2000 are listed as "Missing in Action". All of these men and women understood and accepted their roles as front-line participants in armed conflict. They have been recognized (belatedly) for making the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our freedom. They have been memorialized on "The Wall" in Washington, D.C.

But what of the innocent delivery person, the stockbroker, the restaurant worker, the mother, the father, the maintenance person, the client, the secretary, the security guard, and the child who now lay buried beneath uncountable tons of concrete and steel in lower Manhattan and Washington, D.C.? What of the innocent airplane passengers whose lives were extinguished simply because they occupied space on planes converted to missiles by monsters who wanted to make a statement? What is their due? How do we reconcile their accounts? What sense do we make of the senseless? There is no "fair" way to compensate their familys' or our grief. There is no "nice" solution to the challenge that has been issued from the shadowlands that give birth to these monsters. Yes, there are places on our planet that gleefully support random slaughter of innocent men, women, and children. The causes that these cowards espouse vary, but, all of them have one central goal; to murder as many Americans as possible; to disrupt, and eventually, destroy the American way of life. We must respond. We must hold them accountable for their atrocities. We must not be "fair", and we must not be "nice". An "act of war" requires that we respond in kind. We must be warriors. We must be resolute and have the courage of our convictions. We must reconcile the accounts of our dead citizens.

Terrorists deal in fear, and unfortunately, many of us are fearful. They have turned our openness against us, using our resources, our technology, and our willingness to accept all people into our society, as weapons of fear. They dressed as we do, they studied at our learning institutions, and they blended into our daily lives. We must respond, but, who is responsible?

Terror cannot exist in the light. It will not grow in the open. Terror must be clandestine, faceless, and amorphous. It requires a host to spew its seeds, and we know who the hosts are, and where they are located. We know about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya. We know that the seeds of terror have been welcomed by the murderers who control these pieces of our planet. We know that these murderers nurture and cultivate terror in order to maintain power over the hapless minions who comprise their populations. Terror is as effective within their borders as it is within our own.

We have the resources to turn the lights on in all of these areas. We can make the darkness that terror needs to thrive disappear instantly. We have the power to eradicate terror completely; and we must employ this power decisively.

Most importantly, we must ensure that such atrocities never occur again. A hostile group has initiated the use of force against our nation; we have a moral obligation to respond to this act. We must not hesitate to defend ourselves; we must not allow our humanity to stall our response. A world absent terror is a world of life. We have the power to ensure life on Earth and we must exercise this power now. Illuminate the darkness, eliminate terror, and move on with our lives. This is the right course of action.

A Search to Understand

A Search to Understand


Every morning I drive over the Great South Bay bridge, cross the State boat channel bascule bridge and head west along Ocean Parkway towards Meadowbrook and eventually JFK Airport. On Tuesday morning, September 11, the sun made the sky and water blue. The radio announcer said it was a top ten, meaning one of the ten best weather days we would have all year. There were two boats on the bay. I remembered back to years ago when there were hundreds of clam boats on the bay.

As Tuesday's events unfolded, it became obvious that our world has changed forever. F15 fighter jets from McQuire Air Force Base circled JFK Airport. Armed security officers searched roofs of buildings. All types of road closures made travel almost impossible. When I got home, I put up the American flag.

Wednesday morning I saw an aircraft carrier with F 18s not far off the shore of Gilgo Beach. I have never seen an aircraft carrier at sea so close to shore. The next day a Navy destroyer joined it.

Todd, my next door neighbor, a NYC fireman was called to the Trade Center to search for bodies. He has only been home a few hours in the past week.

I listened to the National Day of Mourning Services held in Washington on Friday afternoon. Reverend Billy Graham spoke and reminded the congregation that God is with us through these troubled times. At Sunday’s church service at Cross of Christ Lutheran Church in Babylon, Pastor Bond’s sermon expressed similar thoughts and prayers. We sang Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

The terrorist’s attack on civilization has caused the President of the United States to declare war. Personally, I have struggled to fathom the depths of evil, the intense hatred that not only planned, but also carried out the atrocity perpetrated on the innocent.

The fictional character, John Galt has a soliloquy, in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” I have paraphrased the author’s words from pages 930 to 970 and offer them herein, as I search to understand this act of evil.

In part, Galt states, “ The question to be or not to be, is to think or not to think. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking.

A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality. There is only one price that pays for man’s survival: reason. Every man is an end of himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest morale purpose. “

“It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live. No, you do not have to live, you must live as a man-by the work and judgement of your mind.

Man can not survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it. Reason is the faculty he perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses. The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to reason; his senses tell him only that something is, but what it is must be learned by the mind.

My (Galt’s) morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists-and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason - Purpose - Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge-Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve-Self esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness and pride.

…To withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement-that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devalue your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only evil can profit-and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence.

Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man can commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together no man may initiate-do you hear me? No man may start-the use of physical force against others.

Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins. …And death by a process of gradual destruction is all that you (the terrorist) and your system will achieve.”

“I do not want to grant the terms of reason to men who propose to deprive me of reason. I do not place any moral sanction upon a murder’s wish to kill me. When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him-by force.

It is only as retaliation that force may be used and only against the man who starts its use. No, I do not share his evil or sink to his concept of morality: I merely grant him his choice, destruction, the only destruction he had the right to choose: his own. He uses force to seize a value; I use it only to destroy destruction. A holdup man seeks wealth by killing me; I do not grow richer by killing a hold up man. I seek no values by means of evil, nor do I surrender my values to evil.

Our terms and our motive power are antithesis of yours. You (the terrorist) have been using fear as your weapon and have been bringing death to man as his punishment for rejecting your morality. We offer him life as his reward for accepting ours.

Building is not done by abstaining from destruction…. It will not raise one single girder. …And now you (the terrorist) cannot say to me, the builder: “Produce and feed us in exchange for our not destroying your production.” I am answering in the name of all your victims: Perish with and in your own void. Existence is not a negation of negatives. Evil not value is an absence and a negation; evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us. Perish, because we have learned that a zero (terrorist) cannot hold a mortgage over life.

You (the terrorist) do not wish to live. … The only act that can save you: thinking. Yours is the morality of death.

Death is the standard of your values, death is your chosen goal, and you have to keep running, since there is no escape from the pursuer who is out to destroy you or from the knowledge that the pursuer is yourself.

Damnation is the start of your morality; destruction is its purpose, means and end.”

To the reader - “it is your mind they (the terrorists) want you to surrender.”

“Those irrational wishes that draw you (enlistees) to their (terrorist’s) creed, those emotions you worship as an idol, on whose alter you sacrifice the earth, that dark incoherent passion within you, which you take as the voice of (your) god or your glands, is nothing more than the corpse of your mind. An emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise.

As they (the terrorists) seek, not to build, but to take over industrial plants (or destroy the World Trade Towers), so they seek not to think, but to take over human thinking. They are attempting to take us back to darker ages then any our history has known. Their goal is not the era of pre-science, but the era of pre-language.

Make no mistake about the character of terrorists. To undercut your consciousness has always been their only purpose throughout the ages-and power, the power to rule by force, has always been their only lust.”

This is why the President said we must retaliate.

Henry W. Hessing, PE

Why China?

Why China?


Should being selected to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games honor China?

Baron de Coubertin’s purpose in creating the Modern Olympic Games was based on a belief of rights of the individual. He said: “The Olympiads have been reestablished for the rare and solemn glorification of the individual athlete…” Individuals could strive for moral as well as athletic excellence.

China’s Communist government contradicts the Baron’s purpose. Can individualism be achieved in a totalitarian state in which an individual has no rights?

Andrew Bernstein, Ph.D. wrote an open letter to the IOC. His comments are paraphrased as follows:

“China’s law mandates one child per family. Those who break the law abandon children to state orphanages by the tens of thousands. According to Human Rights Watch/Asia “China’s official policy is one of nutritional and medical neglect with the intent of inducing death. The Shanghai Children’s Welfare Institute, China’s most prestigious orphanage has a child mortality rate of 90 percent during the late 1980s and 1990s.”

Have we forgotten news coverage and photographs of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-freedom activists? Is life any better for Christians and other religious denominations in China today?

Harry Wu survived 19 years in forced labor camps. The author and human rights activist points out that these camps hold between 4 and 6 million prisoners. “Many of these slaves are political and/or religious dissidents, held without due process. Their transgression was opposition to their Communist rulers.”

In the 1999 Harvard University Press release, The Black Book of Communism, researchers established that Mao Zedong and his successors murdered 65 million Chinese. Indiana’s state representative Jim Atterholt referred to China’s political leaders as the “Butchers of Beijing.”

“China is not content with slaughtering and enslaving its own people. China supported the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia,” North Viet Nam against South Viet Nam, North Korea against South Korea, “brutally conquered Tibet and threatened Taiwan.”

“If China does not protect the rights of its own citizens and openly commits aggression against foreign countries, should it compete or host an Olympics? Why should the International Olympic Committee (IOC) legitimize Beijing’s power over its own subjects? Why do civilized countries deem China worthy of the honor to host the Olympics? China is a murderous dictatorship. It kills its children.” What propaganda can legitimately mask this carnage?

Apologists will say, “that the Olympic games will not be interpreted by China’s leaders as a reward for past misdeeds, but as an incentive to increase their toleration of dissent. The political pressure of being in the Olympic spotlight will help to open up China.”

Exactly how is this going to happen? Is there a precedent? Did the IOC use this leverage to stop Soviet tanks from rolling into Afghanistan during the 1980 Olympics?

Bob Tracinski, a columnist for Creator’s Syndicate wrote, “The tragedy of the IOC’s decision is not so much the reward that has been granted to China’s dictatorship: it is the fact that, just as in the years leading up to World War II, the free nations of the world have lost the moral confidence to judge, to condemn, and to ostracize the world’s dictators.”

The Olympics celebrate man at his best. The IOC did not stand tall for moral principles and the dignity of man when they selected China, to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.


Henry W. Hessing