Performance of protective coatings for bridge decks is evaluated. Applications to bridges on the New York State highway system from 1961 through 1967 included 1) surface overlays, 2) membranes between the structural slab and bituminous wearing course, and 3) surface sealants. Overlays and membranes consisted of epoxies, polyesters, polyurethanes, latexes, neoprenes, silicone rubbers, and asphalt cutbacks. Surface sealants included silicones, distillate oils, and linseed oil. None of the surface overlays lasted more than 2 to 3 yr. However, a flexible polyester resin with fiber glass has provided satisfactory service for 1-1/2 yr and will remain under observation. Leakage of box-girder bridges with a membrane was primarily due to shear-key construction (since modified), while the same materials applied to composite bridges were associated with leakage that could not be explained. A more comprehensive survey of membranes is planned. Silicone and distillate oil sealants on non-air-entrained concrete did not improve long-term durability. Air-entrained concrete, both with and without linseed oil treatment, showed no evidence of deterioration after 4 yr of exposure.

At head of title: National Cooperative Highway Research Program.

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 425: Waterproofing Membranes for Concrete Bridge Decks documents information on materials, specification requirements, design details, application methods, system performance, and costs of waterproofing membranes used on new and existing bridge decks since 1995.

Essential infrastructures such as bridges are designed to provide a long-lasting and intergenerational functionality. In those cases, sustainability becomes of paramount importance when the infrastructure is exposed to aggressive environments, which can jeopardise their durability and lead to significant maintenance demands. The assessment of sustainability is however often complex and uncertain. The present study assesses the sustainability performance of 16 alternative designs of a concrete bridge deck in a coastal environment on the basis of a neutrosophic group analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The use of neutrosophic logic in the field of multi-criteria decision-making, as a generalisation of the widely used fuzzy logic, allows for a proper capture of the vagueness and uncertainties of the judgements emitted by the decision-makers. TOPSIS technique is then used to aggregate the different sustainability criteria. From the results, it is derived that only the simultaneous consideration of the economic, environmental and social life cycle impacts of a design shall lead to adequate sustainable designs. Choices made based on the optimality of a design in only some of the sustainability pillars will lead to erroneous conclusions. The use of concrete with silica fume has resulted in a sustainability performance of 46.3% better than conventional concrete designs.

Whatever his name or alias at the moment—Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, Kid Antrim, Billy Bonney—people always called him the Kid. Not until his final month did anyone call him Billy the Kid. Newspapers pictured him as a king of outlaws; and his highly publicized capture, trial, escape, and end fixed his image in the public mind for all time. He was only twenty-one years old when a bullet from Sheriff Pat Garett’s six-shooter killed him on July 14, 1881. Within a year Billy the Kid became the subject of five dime-novel “biographies” as well as Garett’s ghost-written account, and that was just the beginning. Robert M. Utley does what countless books, movies, television shows, musical compositions, and paintings have failed to do: he successfully strips off the veneer of legendry to expose the reality of Billy the Kid. Using previously untapped sources, he presents an engrossing story—the most complete and accurate ever—of a youthful hoodlum and sometime killer who found his calling in New Mexico’s bloody power struggle known as the Lincoln County War. In unmasking the legend Utley also tells us much about our heritage of frontier vigilantism and violence.