An innovative and practical repair

Highway 17 Over Battle River Bridge Rehabilitation

With leaking expansion joints, the bridge that runs over Battle River was deteriorating. In order to extend the service life of this aging structure, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Highways reached out to our team for help.

We were challenged to develop a long-term low maintenance repair to help keep the bridge from degrading. After completing a detailed investigation of the structure, we identified several repairs and improvements that needed to occur. This included adding a jointless bridge deck—utilizing link slabs and semi-integral abutments allowed us to eliminate all four expansion joints. To our knowledge, these are the first link slabs that used hooked steel fibres in the exposed concrete deck in Saskatchewan and Alberta. We also removed the upper portion of the bridge deck and poured a new concrete overlay, replaced the bearings and concrete bearing seats, strengthened girders using external stirrups, replaced existing curb and railing system, and spot repairs on all salvaged elements. Approach work on the bridge included resurfacing, guardrail upgrades, and drainage troughs.

Upon completion, our team had extended the service life of this 56-year old structure by 40 or more years—we even reduced the carbon footprint by salvaging most of the structure. We were able to increase the bridge’s load carrying capacity, widen the bridge, and install a new standard barrier, ultimately increasing functionality for the surrounding communities.