The United States has over 578,000 bridges on public roads. Over 112,000 of them are rated as substandard either through deterioration or obsolence. Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites are a natural for building bridges. They offer advantages such as:

• Reduced weight -- the reduced dead weight of the deck allows the bridge to carry an increased traffic load.
• Decreased Effects from Environment -- FRPs don't rust and aren't affected by salts and other contaminants. They can be affected by ultraviolet radiation (UV) but that is easily resolved by adding pigments to the polymer when it is constructed. This reduces their maintenance costs and promises a longer lifespan.
• Speed in Installation -- Since FRP bridges can be built in a factory, they can trucked to a site and installed in considerably less time than it would take to built a bridge on site. A bridge can be installed in hours or days instead of weeks or months.

A lot of work has been carried out in developing FRP bridges. It is estimated that over 30 million dollars has been spend by the federal government in developing composites for infrastructure usage; over half of that has been spent on bridging. A lot of research has been carried out by various universities and private companies. KSCI is proud that it was the first to place an all FRP bridge on a public road in the United States. This is not to say that we were the only ones, nor the first, to build a FRP bridge. Over the years, bridges have been built with FRP components and there have been a number of pedestrian bridges and bridges built for restricted vehicluar traffic. It is sometimes difficult to quantify exactly what is a "composite" bridge. A bridge having composite (FRP) tendons or those strengthened with laminates did not make our list. We developed this list for bridges that are mostly or completely made of FRP composites.

FRP Road Bridges:

1. November 8, 1996 - KSCI installed bridge over No-Name Creek, Russell, Kansas. More details about the bridge is at http://www.ksci.com
2. May 1997 - West Virginia University - this deck has been installed at Laurel Lick, West Virginia More details about the bridge is at http://www.cemr.wvu.edu/~wwwcfc/frp/frpbri.html
3. June 24, 1997 - Tom's Creek Virginia - this one even has video. More details about the bridge is at http://www.vt.edu:10021/eng/esm/jlesko/tcb/tcb.html
4. July 8, 1997 - Butler County Ohio - Lockheed Bridge Installation Site. More details about the bridge is at http://www.bceo.org/technology.html
5. September 1997 - Wickwire Run Bridge was installed in Taylor County, West Virginia. More details about this bridge can be found at http://www.cemr.wvu.edu/~wwwcfc/frp/wickwire.htm

FRP Road Bridges (with limited access or weights):

1. 1995 - The Bonds Mill Lift Bridge in Stonehouse, England was probably the first bridge built for vehicular traffic. It is limited in its ability to carry vehicles. The only reference on the internet I've found is a PDF file on the bottom of the page at http://www.maunsell.co.uk/acrobat/special/prhpaper.pdf. You will need to download it before you can see it. Maunsell Co provided the picture shown here. If you would like to see a larger picture, click on it.
2. 1997 - The Philadelphia, PA zoo has a composite bridge built by Creative Pultrusion.

FRP Pedestrian Bridges:

1. 1993 - Aberfeldy Footbridge, Aberfeldy Golf Club, Scotland. The only reference on the internet I've found is a PDF file on the bottom of the page at http://www.maunsell.co.uk/acrobat/special/prhpaper.pdf. You will need to download it before you can see it. Maunsell Co provided the picture shown here. If you would like to see a larger picture, click on it.
2. 1994 - LaSalle St. Composite Pedestrian Walkway. For more details, check out http://iti.acns.nwu.edu/composites/lasalle.html
3. 1996 - Antioch Composite Pedestrian Bridge, Antioch, IL. More details about this bridge can be found at http://iti.acns.nwu.edu/composites/antioch.html
4. Oct 1997 - Homestead Bridge, Los Alamos, NM. More details about this bridge can be found at http://composite.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa102797.htm

Other Composite Bridge Information:

• Northwestern University - These people have done a very nice survey of highway officials regarding composites use. You can read all about it at http://iti.acns.nwu.edu/composites
• Lockheed Martin's first effort at the INEEL Then can be found at http://www.inel.gov/capabilities/transportation/bridge/bridge.htm
• West Virginia University - Access to composites sites all over. They can be found at http://www.cemr.wvu.edu/~wwwcfc/frp/frpsites.html
• HCBS - Composite Bridge Deck. More details on their deck can be found at http://rampages.onramp.net/~cogg/HCBS/Products/CBDeck/CBDeck.html
• John Busel wrote an interesting article about a tour of composite bridges in Europe and Japan. More details can be found at http://iti.acns.nwu.edu/composites/cda.html

If anyone is aware of another bridge that should be listed on this page, please send an e-mail to KSCI with the details and a web link if one is available. Our e-mail is ksci@ksci.com.