Bridge Load Rating Project

October 15, 2010

The Department of Civil Engineering has a contract with the New Mexico Department of Transportation to load-rate 80 bridges per year. The purpose is to produce bridge information models of all of New Mexico’s bridges, to structurally rate the bridges, and to identify those bridges that require structural remediation. The project, led by Professor Walter Gerstle, has so far employed five graduate students: Scott Chapman, Kelly Montoya, Artemio Zavala, Bhanu Kiran Tuniki, and Asif Rahman. The students have learned a great deal about bridge design by reading bridge plans and entering bridge information into the VIRTIS bridge information modeling system. The project is funded at the level of approximately $100,000 per year over five years.