Special Inspections and Design (SID) had the incredible opportunity to work with Marschel Wrecking on the demolition of the Highway 47 Bridge in Washington, MO. The truss bridge was originally built in the 1930’s and was closed at the end of 2018 when construction was completed on a new bridge. SID came up with a demolition plan which laid out the sequence of events leading up to the blast and the debris removal after the blast. SID also analyzed the existing built up steel truss members for acceptable areas to precut and place explosives. Test samples were cut from various steel components along the length of the trusses and compositional analysis and tensile tests were performed to determine the material properties used in the structural analysis.
For more information about the bridge implosion and Marschel Wrecking please see their article here.
