This book provides an excellent reference and overview of a variety of testing and monitoring methods and procedures applicable to most bridge types and construction materials. The editor has assembled a number of international authors for different chapters, each covering a particular specialism. The book is compact (just larger than A5 and about 260 pages) and, if not used only for reference, readable from cover to cover. Although contributors to the 12 chapters are predominantly from the USA, there are also sources from Canada, Norway, India, Italy, Finland and the UK.
The first three chapters cover concrete bridges, with excellent résumés of issues relating to the corrosion of reinforcement and the broad topic of alkali–silica reaction before expounding the more recent science associated with acoustic testing of bridge decks. A little surprisingly, but with equal thoroughness, the next five chapters are devoted to timber bridge elements—from conventional methods designed to detect decay through to specialist ultrasonic and digital radioscopy techniques. The book closes with chapters covering the basics of bridge inspection as well as the use of acoustic emissions and the intriguing title of ‘Inspection using virtual reality and photogrammetry’. Somewhat incongruously, the book ends with a chapter on discontinuities in masonry walls, which may be better suited to other engineering or even building structures.
Although all chapters are written by different authors, the editor has made a sound attempt to ease consistency and readability. There are some differences between the theory and the practical applications covered in each chapter, but this is dependent on the topic. The text is accompanied by clear tables, figures and diagrams with the occasional black and white photograph. All chapters give a very comprehensive list of references, enabling the interested reader to delve further into a particular topic. Chapters do vary in terms of technical depth given to the topic but this is inevitable given the breadth of subjects. This in itself presents a conundrum as to the intended audience for the book, but I would suggest that it would suit late undergraduate or postgraduate academic status or to provide a reference in a design office's technical library.
Of course, this book is published at a time when there is a need, certainly in the USA, to re-establish public confidence in the design, maintenance and management of bridge stocks. Although the cause of the catastrophic failure of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in 2007 may not have been attributable to, or even preventable by, the inspection and maintenance regime, if the public perception is that the profession needs to raise its game and demonstrate a more robust approach to bridge and structure management, then this book will serve to guide practising engineers through the range of specialist inspection and monitoring techniques available to them.
