Although Advanced Waterfront Technologies is primarily focused on marine and marina related products, we like to keep up on exciting applications of composite technology in other areas as well. Especially when it is an application that one of our principals works with, namely Harbor Technologies. The HC Bridge company has selected Harbor Technologies to build the composites components for several bridges, due to their composites expertise. Take a look at the picture of the engineer standing under the railroad bridge.
Talk about standing behind your designs: standing under your product as in this case requires even more confidence.
Also, Composite Manufacturing magazine had this interesting interview with the inventor and long time designer of this composite bridge technology.
One of the fantastic aspects of this special bridge design is that the composite components are very very lightweight. In any application where there are issues relating to transporting bridge components this can be a deal maker technology. And, even once the much more limited amount of concrete is installed, the bridge has a much lower dead load, so you'll realize more capacity.
As the mind wanders, one wonders, if I had an island project, will this technology facilitate logistics ? Also, could I land one end of my bridge or dock on the island, and then have a 70' span to piles to make my project more environmentally appealing ? I'm not sure I know the answers to these sorts of questions directly as every bridge is a custom engineered design, but we can find out or put you in touch with help.
Although our main mission isn't bridges, if you have a special application for this special technology please let us know, since we always love to help out a company we represent, in this case Harbor Technologies, whose marine piles we do represent directly.
