Wisconsin Wins Grant to Study Ag Equipment on Bridges

Wisconsin Department of Transportation officials will receive a $1.3 million national grant to conduct research on how agricultural implements impact the state’s bridges.

Bill Oliva, the DOT’s chief structures development engineer, said the DOT applied for and received a grant from the National Academies of Science Transportation Research Board “to get a better understanding of the nature of the fleet of vehicles out there.”

“There is a unique configuration of farm equipment over what we typically design for some of the engineering parameters we would use to analyze bridges and potentially roads,” Oliva said.

“It’s pretty important, because there isn’t a lot of science out there, he said. “With highway bridges, we have 100 years of science that has evolved. But with farm equipment, we are really just embracing it now, so there is really no history on the different axles, tire widths, wheel configurations and their impacts. Currently we have to use our best engineering judgment.”

Oliva said the goal of the research project will be to come up with a “much better analytical tool and understanding of our axle fleet out there.”

Oliva said DOT officials will solicit a project researcher and award the project shortly after the first of the year.

Rose Phetteplace, director of the DOT’s Bureau of Highway Maintenance, said the research project will look specifically at how agricultural equipment affects the roads and bridges.

“It will look at how you analyze equipment’s effects on roads and bridges on a piece-by-piece, structure-by-structure basis,” she said. “The project will try to come up with standard tools to do that analysis. It’s actually a pretty big deal.”

Wisconsin will be the lead state on the project designed to provide answers to the agricultural equipment issue on a national basis, Phetteplace said. Nebraska is also looking at similar issues with a legislative study. S