County tests new bridge repair

Published 10:30 am Friday, December 30, 2022

Lauderdale County officials will be paying close attention to a recently repaired bridge to see whether or not a new material holds up to the county’s expectations.

In a work session Thursday, Road Manager Rush Mayatt told supervisors an emergency repair on Harper Road bridge utilized a new expanding polyfoam to fill a void created by erosion.

The foam, he said, would be a good fix for a number of other bridges throughout the county if it can hold up to weather and the stresses of daily traffic.

“I hope that we can use this throughout the county,” he said. “It’s definitely a lot less invasive, where as the old way of correcting these things would be to basically dig up in front of your abutment or endcap and back fill. It’s just very painstaking doing it that way.”

Mayatt said the expanding foam is similar to foam products used to lift concrete slabs and level housing foundations. Holes were drilled in the road, he said, and the foam was pumped in to fill the void below.

At a cost to the county of $14,200, County Administrator Chris Lafferty said the foam was also significantly less expensive than traditional fixes. The total cost for the repair, he said, was less than the price of asphalt for repaving if the county had opted to dig down to fill the void.

Richmond Alexander, of Engineering Plus, which serves as the county engineer, said the Harper Road bridge needed repair after a void developed where the road and bridge meet. By drilling down through the pavement, he said the county was able to fill the void without having to dig up the road.

Mayatt said Harper Road is a good candidate for testing the foam because the slope of banks made it difficult to fix the erosion problem by traditional means. Any material the county put, he said, likely wouldn’t stay.

“With the slope that it’s on, it’s very difficult to put any type of material down there,” he said.

Supervisor Josh Todd commended Alexander and Mayatt for thinking outside the box and trying new solutions. If the foam holds up, he said, the county could save a lot of time and money on bridge repairs.

Alexander said he and Mayatt would monitor the bridge over the coming weeks to see how the foam material held up to the elements and traffic. If there were no issues, the county could look to add the foam to its arsenal of tools for maintenance and repairs.

“We’re going to monitor it over the next little bit to see how it reacts, especially to winter,” he said.