Engineers zap bridges with electricity to test for corrosion
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - 09:30
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org) —Rust is a civil engineer's nightmare. Motorists in the United States make more than 200 million trips across bridges rated structurally deficient or in need of significant maintenance and yearly inspection. Of the more than 17,000 bridges in New York, 12.5 percent are structurally deficient and 27 percent are considered functionally obsolete. One major culprit: corrosion of reinforcing steel.