The historic Franklin Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was built in 1923 and rehabilitated in 1970. The 1,050-foot-long, five-span, open-spandrel concrete deck arch structure has served as a vital link over the Mississippi River for nearly one hundred years, connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul neighborhoods. Degradation and changing usage led to the full replacement of the deck and spandrel cap beams during the summer of 2016.
In this article, materials engineer John Lawler and structural engineer Arne Johnson describe how the superstructure was replaced during a 116-day closure by coupling accelerated bridge construction techniques with prefabricated bridge elements and systems.
This article was originally published in the Summer 2017 issue of ASPIRE, a quarterly magazine published by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute.
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