Orthotropic steel deck for the Williamsburg Bridge reconstruction

The Williamsburg Bridge, one of the major New York City long span bridges, is currently undergoing a reconstruction program at an approximate cost of 500 million dollars. As part of this project, the existing grid decks and stringers on the main bridge will be replaced by a closed rib orthotropic steel deck. Fatigue concerns, due to the inherent nature of fabrication and welding involved in this type of deck, led to the development of two alternative weld details for the support diaphragm/rib connection at floorbeam locations. A full-scale testing program, the first of its kind, focusing on the performance of these two weld details is being performed at Lehigh. Design aspects of the deck replacement and its testing are presented in this paper.