National Center for Wood Transportation Structures

About the research

This is a continuation of a previous research project, Investigation of the Effect of Speed on Dynamic Impact Factor for Bridges with Different Entrance Conditions, which determined that the roughness on bridge deck approaches is a primary influence on general dynamic impact factors (DIFs). This project will take the information found through that project and correlate it to the international roughness index (IRI) data collected by the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) with the DIF used when analyzing bridges for heavy load permits. The goal of this project is to develop a method to estimate the DIF value for a large number of bridges for load rating engineers.