MIDH Explains What Lies Beneath Hot Mix on New Bridge

According to Moody, it is important to set the record straight on the construction of the bridge.  He continued with an explanation of what takes place beneath the surface of the hot mix.

 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, MIDH

“In order to build the deck you have to incorporate expansion joints and expansion joints are required because the bridge will expand and contract based on the increase and decrease in temperature.  In Belize, our temperature varies from maybe sixty-five degrees up to a hundred or sometimes in the summer periods it goes higher than that.  But for the most part, our temperature ranges between eighty-five and a hundred degrees.  We don‘t have snow, but the expansion joints are also designed for low temperatures.  So what has basically transpired is that when we were placing the hot mix on top of the bridge we had to cover the expansion joint.  The expansion joint basically has a bearing pad which is this rubber material here and that is between the joint, so that when the bridge expands and contracts it bucks against this rubber so that you don‘t have the two concrete bucking together because if that happens, the bridge will crack. Before we were able to do that, there was a section of the plywood that had broken and that was what the public was seeing in terms of the hot mix coming off the plywood.  And so that is not a pothole because, as I mentioned before, the main bridge structure is eleven inches thick of concrete.  There will be no potholes on the bridge, absolutely none, and so that misconception has to be corrected and I think it was important for us to explain the basic process that is being done in an effort to create these expansion joints for the bridge.”