Highway 47 Bridge Implosion

In 2018, a new bridge was constructed to carry Highway 47 over the Missouri River and a Union Pacific Railroad rail line in Washington, MO. The original bridge, deemed functionally deficient, was a steel truss structure constructed in the 1930s. The original bridge was approximately 2,500 ft long and consisted of approximately 2,200 tons of steel framing supported on reinforced concrete piers. Special Inspections & Design provided specialty structural engineering services to facilitate the safe demolition of the original structure. This included inspecting the bridge and original design documentation to assess its condition and determine the best demolition method; preparing a site-specific phased demolition plan detailing the order of operations for the demolition process; creating a separate site-specific demolition plan for the span over the railroad designed to protect the rail line and minimize disruption to rail operations; determining the location of the pre-cut lines and the weights of the cut sections to ensure the barge-mounted cranes would be able to lift each section; analyzing the bridge structure for dead and wind loads in the weakened condition; providing pre-cut plans and details specifying the location, process and dimensions for each pre-cut; designing a fall protection system to be utilized during deck removal; analyzing the bridge for specific equipment loads to be used during deck removal; and determining the cut locations for the pier removal. SID was instrumental in ensuring the demolition plans were fully coordinated with and approved by the Missouri Department of Transportation, the United States Coast Guard, and the Union Pacific Railroad. On April 11th, 2019 the 80 year old bridge was successfully brought down using 750 copper linear shaped charges.