Topic Areas & Requirements

The PEER-Bridge Program will perform research in seven topic areas as specified below.

1. Maintenance/Sustainability

   Objectives:Develop cost effective methods for assessing the structural health of a bridge. Create repair techniques to prolong a bridge’s functional life. Assess innovative design and material options that will minimize life-cycle costs.

2. New Materials

   Objectives: Perform evaluation and trial application of new construction materials such as high strength reinforcing steel, stainless steel, ultra-high-performance concrete, light-weight concrete, and composite materials.

3. Bridge Modeling & Analysis

   Objective: Develop improved methods for assessing structural demand and performance.

4. Accelerated Bridge Construction

   Objective: Develop techniques and structural systems that increase the speed of construction and minimize disruption to the traveling public.

5. Performance Based Earthquake Engineering (PBEE)/Bridge and System Reliability

   Objectives: Develop bridge design methods that include seismic performance targets at different hazard levels. Investigate how different performance targets impact the performance of the transportation network following a major earthquake.

6. Foundations & Walls

   Objective: Improve the geotechnical design of bridge foundations and retaining walls to improve performance and cost efficiency.

7. Intelligent Design Tools/Bridge Design Aids

   Objective: Develop new tools and methods that take advantage of artificial intelligence to accelerate the bridge design process.