Frida (Zhaohan) Wu joined Dr. Cruz’s research team while completing her BSc in Civil Engineering. Since then, she has been admitted into MSc program and has been conducting research into corrosion effect on pre-stressed concrete bridge girders.
A case study bridge on highway 763 has been taken down by Alberta Transportation due to bad deteriorations. These girders have only been in service for 27 years, so the goal is to investigate the residual capacity of these girders and assess the cause of deterioration.
A finite element model of the bridge girders with the original properties will be developed to give a better understanding of how the “as new” girders will perform under 4-point bending tests. Later on, these bridge girders will be tested in a structural lab at the University of Alberta to investigate the corrosion effect on the girders.