Guidelines for Corrosion Protection of Steel Bridges Using Duplex Coating Systems

Bridge coatings greatly contribute to the longevity of steel bridges and reduce the total life-cycle cost by protecting steel bridge members from corrosion. For most steel bridges across the nation, the most popular practice is to provide a 3-coat, zinc-rich primer system. The 3-coat system generally requires regular maintenance (touchup), otherwise the bridge may have to be completely overcoated or the coating be removed and replaced prematurely. This approach has proven to be a maintenance challenge for bridge owners. While efforts are ongoing to improve the service life of traditional coating systems another approach would be the use of “duplex systems” (hot dip galvanized or metallized with a coating system) to provide long-term protection against corrosion. Research indicates that the synergetic life of duplex coatings will extend the bridge service life beyond the traditional coating systems. Unfortunately, bridge owners have had mixed experience with duplex coatings. Some state departments of transportation (DOTs) have had great success with the duplex coating systems while others have had issues with galvanizing and metalizing quality, experienced adhesion problems with the finish coating, or have had to perform maintenance painting of the duplex coating systems sooner than anticipated. The processes are currently reliant on the experience of the galvanizers, metalizers, and coating applicators with lack of guidelines. As a result and in order to be consistent, there is an immediate need to develop guidelines for bridge owners on the use of duplex coating systems for corrosion protection of steel bridges. The objectives of this research were to (1) develop AASHTO guidelines for corrosion protection of using duplex coating systems for extending the service life of steel bridges that can be adopted by AASHTO and (2) plan and conduct a workshop to demonstrate the use of proposed guidelines to an audience of DOT staff and other stakeholders. The guidelines cover the selection and application of duplex coating systems during the new design, and maintenance and rehabilitation of existing steel bridges.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=4568

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $397854
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 12-117

• Sponsor Organizations:

  American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

  444 North Capitol Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Abu-Hawash, Ahmad

• Performing Organizations:

  Elzly Technology Corporation

  Reston, VA  United States 
• Principal Investigators:

  Ault, J

• Start Date: 20190516
• Expected Completion Date: 20221030
• Actual Completion Date: 20221030

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Anticorrosion coatings; Corrosion protection; Durability; Field studies; Galvanizing; Guidelines; Laboratory tests; Specifications; State of the art; Steel bridges
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Materials;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01672545
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 12-117
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Jun 19 2018 9:44AM