ABSTRACT
Corrosion caused by water ingress is a significant risk for parallel-strand cable systems lower anchorages. When this risk is realised on a bridge, implementing a robust maintenance strategy is needed to ensure safety and minimise operational impacts. This makes ultrasonic reflectometry a valuable tool for bridge owners since it can estimate the condition of individual wires from the anchorage.
Sixense’s UScan® has been applied to the stay cables of Pont de Normandie since 2012, and since COWI started advising the bridge operator CCIT-SE in 2019, complementary testing and analysis has allowed to assess the reliability of ultrasonic testing and to maximise the value of ultrasonic testing data.
The paper builds on this experience to discuss how ultrasonic testing can be used to inform stay cable maintenance and replacement and proposes further steps to better enable proactive maintenance that minimises costs and operational impacts while extending the life of stay cables.
