01322210

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/2201-01

http://scholar.google.com...land&publication_year=2010

A case study concerns a small bridge site in an arid area where ongoing inhibition of the transport of bed load sediment has caused chronic problems and maintenance issues for many years. The crossing of Guadalupe Arroyo by US-62–180 exhibits many unusual and important characteristics that are seldom seen in one place. Guadalupe Arroyo is an ephemeral stream in a very arid area. The stream originates high on the east slopes of the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas, where the watershed is subject to rainfall generated by orographic lift. The stream traverses several miles of arid land and ultimately disappears into a dry lake. It is subject to severe flash flooding because of the slope and orographic effects of the mountains, and it apparently transports large amounts of widely graded material (silt to boulder sized). A bridge across this stream was constructed for US-62–180 in 1959. Since that construction, the stream has exhibited symptoms of instability in the reach around the bridge, manifesting as chronic, severe aggradation accompanied by widening, avulsion, and bank erosion. Evidence exists of large magnitude transport of very large particles on a regular basis, to the extent of requiring protection of the piles from boulder impacts. Maintenance forces have continually removed accumulated bed material from the bridge opening and the reach immediately upstream. A large lens of bed material has accumulated upstream and extends approximately 1,000 ft (305 m) from the bridge. This site presents a rare opportunity to study an extreme case of the inadvertent inhibition of the transport of bed material in an ephemeral desert stream by the construction of an otherwise ordinary and innocuous highway bridge.

01322203

7IBEC-0015

English

pp 3-9

2010

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309160421

Print

Maps (1) ; Photos (10) ; References (6)

Arid land; Boulders; Case studies; Deserts; Erosion; Highway bridges; Scour; Silts; Streambeds; Streams

Flash floods

Guadalupe Arroyo

Bridges and other structures; Design; Geotechnology; Highways; I24: Design of Bridges and Retaining Walls; I42: Soil Mechanics

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 3 2010 2:01PM

• Assessment and Rehabilitation of Corpus Christi Harbor Bridge, Texas
• Assessment of Washington Avenue Bridge Across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for Central Corridor Light Rail Transit
• Continuous Remote Monitoring of Structural Health for Life Extension of Uplift Bearing Assembly on Large Cantilever Truss Bridge
• Delaware’s Indian River Inlet Bridge: Comprehensive Plan for Long-Term Structural Monitoring
• Design–Build Replacement of US-90 Bridge over Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
• Evaluation of Wireless Devices for Monitoring Fracture-Critical Steel Bridges
• Jet Grouting to Provide Scour Protection: Bridges Across San Juan Creek near Antonio Parkway, California
• Mass Stabilization for Environmentally Sensitive Projects in Florida
• Multiple Complementary Nondestructive Evaluation Technologies for Condition Assessment of Concrete Bridge Decks
• Renovation of Structural Health Monitoring System for Seohae Bridge, Seoul, South Korea
• Resonant Sensors for Detecting Corrosion in Concrete Bridges
• Sanhao Bridge, Shenyang, China
• Seismic Analysis of Integral Abutment Bridge in Tennessee, Including Soil–Structure Interaction
• Seismic Retrofit of California’s Auburn–Foresthill Bridge
• Thermographic Imaging of Subsurface Deterioration in Concrete Bridges
• Ultimate Limit State of Deep-Corrugated Large-Span Box Culvert
• Using Geophones for Nondestructive Evaluation of Full-Scale Bridges