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1 PDH · about 60 minutes · Course no. BR-DP02 · Instructor: Michael Craig, PE
Michael Craig, PE is Senior Vice President and Southeast Director at Strinteg Corporation, leading bridge inspection and structural engineering across eight states and Puerto Rico. In 27+ years he has inspected over 4,000 structures and completed 3,000+ load ratings and 160+ load tests. He has managed repair and preservation design for complex bridges, including cable-stayed bridges. He holds PE licenses in twelve states, DC and Puerto Rico, SPRAT Level 1, and FAA Part 107 credentials.
The deck is the bridge component that takes the most abuse and usually needs the most maintenance. Most deck deterioration comes from one chain of events: water and chlorides get into the concrete through cracks and pores, reach the reinforcement, and corrode it, and the corrosion products crack and delaminate the cover. Deck preservation means breaking that chain early, with washing, penetrating sealers, crack sealers, thin and thick overlays, and well-built patches, matched to the deck's condition. This course covers how to choose and sequence those treatments. It draws on the FHWA Bridge Preservation Guide (FHWA-HIF-18-022, 2018), Chapter 7 of the Florida DOT Bridge Maintenance Course Series Reference Manual (Maintenance and Preservation Techniques for Bridge Decks and Slabs), and Chapter 2 of the TxDOT Bridge Preservation Guide (March 2024). Product properties, service lives and costs quoted from those documents reflect those agencies' experience. Numbers in worked examples that do not come from these documents are labeled illustrative.