environmental conditions such as corrosion, and (3)
extremely heavy truck loads. Deck delamination and
concrete spalling are the most common forms of deterioration.
The concrete surface layers become loose and
may peel off, exposing the reinforcing steel to the
external environment and causing damage to the structure.
The use of deicing salts plays a strong role in
exacerbating the problem of concrete spalling. Moreover,
overweight trucks may lead to deterioration of
concrete decks that suffer from delamination or spalling.
Nowak et al. [2] gathered data on truck weight (over
600,000-truck record) from Weigh Stations, Weigh-In-
Motion measurements, and overweight trucks from the
Motor Carrier Division of the Michigan State Police
(i.e. citations). Many trucks exceeded the State legal
limits on truck gross weight. Heavy load vehicles may
shorten the life of the structure. The repeated passage of
heavy trucks results in large stress ranges at a large
number of cycles. i.e. a shorter fatigue life. Therefore,
there is a need to control cracking of bridge decks.
This paper introduces ferrocement laminates with
high compressive strength at the bottom of the concrete
deck as shown in Fig. 1. The proposed ferrocement layer
can be implemented as a repair technique by attaching it
to the bottom of an existing structure (e.g. a concrete