Mars Hill Bridge

Map

The Wapello County Mars Hill Bridge represents the first highway bridge in North America to utilize ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC).

Overview: Bridge over Little Soap Creek on 100th Avenue
Location: Wapello County, Iowa
Status: Open to traffic
History: Built 2006
Builders: - Bloomfield Bridge & Culvert, Inc. of Bloomfield, Iowa
- Iowa Department of Transportation of Ames, Iowa
- Iowa State University Bridge Engineering Center of Ames, Iowa
- Lafarge Canada Inc. of Calgary, Alberta, Canada & Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Design: Three 110ft long precast concrete modified 45in deep Iowa bulb-tee beams topped with a cast-in-place concrete bridge deck. The concrete offers such considerable strength that the beams were built without any shear reinforcement.
Dimensions: Length of largest span: 110.0 ft.
Total length: 113.0 ft.
Deck width: 24.5 ft.
Approximate latitude, longitude: +40.90417, -92.35214 (decimal degrees)
40°54'15" N, 92°21'08" W (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates: 15/554564/4528320 (zone/easting/northing)
Quadrangle map:: Agency
Land survey: T. 71 N., R. 13 W., Sec 33-34
Elevation: 670 ft. above sea level
Inventory number: BH 53477 (Bridgehunter.com ID)

Mars Hill Bridge

Posted September 8, 2012, by Clark Vance (cvance [at] dogmail [dot] com)

Modern and historic.

Still ugly concrete although the slimmer beams hold promise for some interesting and attractive designs in the future.