When the power is activated on the new 5.4-mile-long, $803-million I-10 Twin Span Bridge outside of New Orleans in October, it will transform an icon of the region's recovery from 2005's Hurricane Katrina into a beacon of cutting-edge information-technology usage on bridge design and construction.
An embedded sensor array—including, from deck to piles, a concentration of devices in a key bent and pier of the main navigation span—already has served to validate significant construction and design calculations, even before the array goes into service providing structural heath monitoring during operations.