UDOT Transporting Largest Bridge Beams In Utah For I-15 Project
Dec 14, 2018, 8:13 AM
LEHI, Utah – The Utah Department of Transportation was breaking records Friday morning by transporting the largest bridge beams to ever be precast in Utah.
The beams will be installed as part of the point of the mountain construction project, and the technology will end up saving a lot of construction time.
Measuring more than 200 feet long and weighing in at 224,000 pounds, the beams will be supporting a bridge in Lehi.
Workers moved the first two beams Thursday to I-15 southbound between 2100 North and Lehi’s Main Street. It’s unclear what time the second two will be moved Friday, but UDOT won’t have to shut down any lanes during the process. The beams are moved down with a truck and then put off to the side of the road.
Projects like these are often done with beams that are all connected together, but engineers said having one, long piece speeds up the project.
“We’re only over the freeway long enough to set this thing in place,” project manager Lee Wegner said. “So instead of taking days to bolt these things together, we’re there for a couple of hours.”
A UDOT spokesperson said a typical concrete driveway takes about 28 days to cure. Compare that to the beams, which they can cure overnight.
