George Washington Bridge repair by Empowering Technologies

American Bridge has chosen StressVoyager® – UNP – to repair welded structures of the George Washington Bridge in New York. This bridge is known as having the most heavily trafficked road in the world, with over 285,000 vehicles crossing it daily and connects the island of Manhattan with two layered decks.

The project includes ultrasonic needle peening / impact treatment (UNP/UIT) of welds to prolong the life of the existing orthotropic deck to secondary floorbeam connection. The existing welds are treated using a ultrasonic driven device that impacts the weld with hardened, needle-like pins at a high frequency (20kHz), which imparts a residual compressive stress in the treated area of the weld, prolonging the fatigue life, and preventing cracking of the welds. The peening is performed along the entire length of the bridge, on the orthotropic deck ribs that see the highest traffic-related stresses and fatigue cycles. In total, there are over 11,000 welds to be cleaned, treated and inspected. The repair yard regards the upper deck and a length of welds to complete a total of about 4 kms.

This success gives us a prestigious reference to address and convince the other owners of welded steel structures in North America and other countries of our technologies.