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https://www.nationalacademies.org/trb/events

High-Strength, Corrosion-Resistant Reinforcement for Empirical Deck Design

The Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) seeks to maximize the long-term durability and minimize the lifecycle maintenance costs of the bridge deck for an upcoming major river-crossing replacement, where future deck rehabilitation or replacement would be exceptionally costly, disruptive, and hazardous. Although NDOT has adopted guidance intended to improve deck durability, current practices still rely primarily on empirical deck design provisions developed decades ago using Grade 60 reinforcing steel. These provisions specify total reinforcing area but do not require explicit evaluation of crack control parameters, do not account for the use of higher-strength reinforcing (e.g., Grade 80 or Grade 100), and do not provide direction on how reduced steel area enabled by higher yield strength may affect crack formation, crack widths, or long-term durability. At the same time, while recent European research has proposed durability-focused design approaches that incorporate explicit crack-width considerations, there remains significant disagreement within the research and practitioner communities regarding the extent to which crack width directly correlates with reinforced concrete durability. As a result, it is not yet clear whether or how such approaches should be adopted by NDOT; however, a thorough review and synthesis of this work is essential to inform any future deck reinforcement guidelines. As NDOT considers transitioning to higher-grade reinforcement to reduce material quantities and construction complexity, it currently has no validated methodology to configure bar size, spacing, and reinforcement ratios to ensure adequate crack control, residual crack behavior, and ultimate strength performance.