I'm a bridge engineer responsible for maintenance on state roadways. We call it bridge remover. Nothing is as detrimental to the integrity of structural components as salt, brine and calcium chloride. The past cpuple of winter seasons have been mild for us so the amount of salt put down has been minimal to the norm. It does a good job in keeping roads clear but is hell on equipment and steel.
It keeps you in business though don't it 'Grad
I agree its pure hell on bridges man there's no two ways about it. Highway 5 near here was constructed in 1986 through the Cascades into the interior of BC. It was a huge economic advantage in many ways, its busy hauling most of the freight in and out of Vancouver from points east and saving hours from the old route. These days every summer one or more of the many bridges are a big construction zone as they pretty much rebuild them from the abutments and piers up. Rusted re-bar sticking out of the concrete lumps that are broken up and hauled away. Bridges don't last long up there and it co$t$ big time. Yep no one hates salt more than bridge guys....
Business is too busy sometimes because of it. The problem is that due to being elevated, bridges are where you need salt the most to lower the freezing point.
Thankfully I'm in central NC which is fairly mild but the guys in the mountains and those down east with salt spray have it rougher than we do. Best thing we have done is moved away from steel girders towards concrete precast girders and box beams where possible. Elastomeric bearing plates too. Sometimes steel is inevitable due to required span lengths but most of our new bridges are concrete. Is it the right call long term? That has yet to be determined but as long as you keep the chlorides out of the concrete through sealers/epoxy treatments, they seem to be better from what I can tell. Steel decks and girders cause us more headaches than about anything other than timber....still a lot of timber decks, abutment and substructure out there.
