August 17, 2023 1:00 pm

William (Bill) Hazelton, P.E., Managing Director, St. Clair County Road Commission, Michigan; Sherif El-Tawil, Ph.D., P.E., Antoine E. Naaman Collegiate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan and Co-Founder, HiPer Fiber, LLC; and Q&A Panel members: Dewayne Rogers, Managing Director, Clare County Road Commission, Michigan; and Benjamin Graybeal, Ph.D., P.E. – Team Leader – Bridge Engineering Research, Federal Highway Administration, Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center

Webinar Documents:
First U.S. Bridge with 100% UHPC Superstructure: Michigan’s Bricker Road Bridge over Quackenbush Drain - pdf of presentation
Q&A Session - pdf
News - August 17, 2023 - pdf of presentation

2023 First Place Award Winner in the Short-Span Bridge Category at the Third International Interactive Symposium on Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC)

Description: Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) opens the door to a new wave of innovation in bridge construction technology. This presentation discusses the NCHRP/IDEA-235 project and the design and construction details and lessons learned on the bridge replacement that resulted, the Bricker Road Bridge over Quackenbush Drain in St. Claire County, Michigan. This precast bridge is the first in the U.S. to have a 100% UHPC superstructure. The bridge was constructed in 2022 with open-recipe (non-proprietary) UHPC mixed in a traditional ready-mix truck by a crew with little to no experience in mixing UHPC. It employed novel triple-stem precast panels that were ultra-slim, ultra-lightweight, and ultra-durable. UHPC for the closure pours was mixed on site. The advantages of using UHPC led to more than a 30% savings over the cost of a traditional concrete bridge. With its extreme durability, it is estimated that this bridge will have a 150-year service life with minimal maintenance. The significant long-term savings coupled with substantial short-term savings herald an exciting era of broad UHPC deployment in bridge construction.

Presenters:

William Hazelton, P.E.
Managing Director
St. Clair County Road Commission,
St. Clair, Michigan
Email: whazelton@stclaircounty.org

Prior to his current position, William (Bill) served as director of engineering for 11 years at the St. Claire County Road Commission. As the director of engineering, he coordinated, supervised, and directed the engineering functions and permit department of the road commission; Bill did this through preparing reports, obtaining federal aid funds, managing asset data collection and reporting, traffic engineering, and coordinating with consultants and townships. Before joining St. Clair CRC, Bill worked with various consulting firms in positions such as project coordinator, project engineer, and survey crew member. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering degree from Wayne State University.

Sherif El-Tawil, Ph.D., P.E.
Co-Founder, HiPer Fiber, LLC
Antoine E. Naaman Collegiate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
University of Michigan
Email: eltawil@umich.edu

Sherif has had a long-sustained interest in the development of open-recipe UHPC and characterization of its short- and long-term properties. He is particularly interested in the effects of extreme loading on structural systems and how UHPC, with its unique properties, can be used to mitigate those effects. Sherif was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Structural Engineering for a decade and has received numerous national and international awards for his teaching, service, and research.