West Seattle traffic-alert update: Highway 99 open again

(“Live” cam at south end of remaining elevated AWV, from the WSB Traffic page)
The Alaskan Way Viaduct “follow-up inspection” is over and Highway 99 is open again, WSDOT has confirmed. From its announcement:

… During today’s inspection, WSDOT engineers took a closer look of areas previously covered in ivy on the 60-year-old highway and installed monitoring devices to gather data over several weeks.

Next steps: Late-night drivers could see some single-lane closures in coming weeks, while repair crews fill cracks with epoxy.

It will take months for engineers to analyze the information from the newly installed monitoring devices, which could shed more light on the cause of the cracking along the elevated highway and if a more robust fix is needed.

P.S. The SDOT Blog website featured some interesting background this week on AWV traffic volume and why the numbers seem to have changed recently.

3 Replies to "West Seattle traffic-alert update: Highway 99 open again"

  • Philosurfy March 22, 2014 (9:24 pm)

    Any structural engineers out there that could explain the repair? As a layperson, epoxy doesn’t seem like an adequate fix…

  • Rachel March 23, 2014 (10:35 am)

    LOL, well put @philosurfy. My sentiments precisely…. epoxy doesn’t exactly make me feel safe.

  • Rob March 24, 2014 (7:23 pm)

    Epoxy injection is a common and effective repair for structural cracks. Cracks down to 0.006″ can be pressure injected with an epoxy resin. The pressure forces the epoxy deep into the cracks, restoring lost bond between the two sides of the crack. Restoring this bond allows the element internal forces to once again be transferred across the crack interface.

    Another benefit of filling cracks is to prevent corrosion to the rebar. Cracks in concrete can and do allow moisture to get to the bar, causing them to corrode. As the bar corrodes, it expands to 2 to 3 times its original size. This can make the crack worse and will eventually cause the cover concrete to delaminate and spall (pop off).

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