How often did John R. Hillman, founder and president of Chicago-based HC Bridge Co., LLC, think about giving up on getting the industry to accept his hybrid bridge beam of concrete and steel with fiber-reinforced polymer materials? “Only about once a week,” he laughs.
Hillman invented the beam design in 1996 after wondering what would happen if he combined concrete and steel with a composite material. Exposure to FRPs in graduate school at Virginia Tech and the experience of working with renowned bridge designer Jean Muller inspired him to marry the “age-old technology” of the arch structure with modern-day materials. “It became a mild obsession,” he says.