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IBC 24-07: Pittsburgh’s Three Sisters Bridges Rehabilitation-Historic Bridge Rehabilitation Lessons Learned
Aaron Colorito, P.E., Michael Baker International, Pittsburgh, PA

Pittsburgh’s historic Three Sisters Bridges (6th, 7th, and 9th Street) over the Allegheny River are nearing the completion of three rehabilitation projects that began in 2016. Although nearly identical in design, detailing, and construction, they have experienced age and deterioration in different ways. Numerous structural repairs were detailed throughout the rehabilitations to address different types of deterioration, damage, and deficient load-carrying capacity. These and other repair strategies are presented for structural steel, concrete, and masonry repair, including the challenging process of cleaning decades of soot and soil from the distinctive masonry substructure units of all three bridges. Challenges encountered during the rehabilitation projects are discussed from a designer’s and owner’s perspective.

IBC 24-09: Suspension Bridge Rehabilitation and Preservation Constructability Challenges
Josh Pudleiner, P.E., STSC, AECOM, Philadelphia, PA

There are 51 long span suspension bridges carrying vehicular traffic in North America. Of that number 50% of them are over 75 years old and 80% of them are over 50 years old. The US, has the oldest major cable suspension bridge inventory in the world with an average age of 73 years. The older of these bridges includes Williamsburg (1903), Brooklyn (1883) and Roebling (1867) with Wheeling (1849) being the oldest in the U.S.
As they get older, the inspection, maintenance, preservation and rehabilitation of these bridges becomes even more vital as the majority of them carry critical infrastructure routes and their closure or even partial closure would cause significant disruption and have an adverse economic effect. Therefore, it is essential that they are well managed and maintained.

Over the past two to three years additional funding has been made available to owners of some of these bridges and there is a large program of work being undertaken to ensure and in cases extend the service life of these bridges.
This paper will examine some of the constructability issues faced by engineers when carrying out projects to preserve, rehabilitate or replace elements of these suspension bridges. These include:

• Suspender ropes testing and replacement
• Hand ropes and stanchion post testing and replacement
• Main cable internal wire inspection
• Main cable dehumidification
• Anchorage dehumidification
• Cable band bolt re-tensioning and replacement
• Main cable saddle bent bolt replacement