A STUDY ON REPAIR METHODS OF CORRODED BRIDGE CABLES

Abstract

  Repair methods of bridge cables were studied using two types of cable models which were exposed in the heavy corrosive environment. The first experiment with parallel strands of 19 wires showed that mass reduction of the outer wires with six repaired models (epoxy resin paint, zincrich paint, oil-filled, epoxy resin filled, zinc powder paste, dehumidification) was much lower than that of the model without repair. The mass reduction of the inner wires was much less than that of the outer wires and the epoxy filled and dehumidified models were very effective. In the second experiment with spiral strands of 7 wires, cross sectional areas of new strands reduced by 2.2% for the first four months and the model without repair continued to decrease. On the other hand, the repair models stopped mass reduction and the effectiveness of the proposed repair methods was validated.