Steel bridges are designed for long life but corrosion remains a challenge. The degree of corrosion and location indicate whether maintenance is needed or desired. Traditional paint systems offering 15-30 years of service life before significant maintenance. For a bridge designed to last 75 or even 100 years, that level of service life isn't enough. Corrosion protection systems including weathering steel, stainless steel, galvanizing and metalizing are being used more often with the goal of improved service life by reducing corrosion impacts. Those systems all offer advantages in performance against corrosion but can come with increased cost or schedule. Liquid applied coatings remain one of the most well known, familiar and economical approaches to protecting a bridge against corrosion. This presentation will introduce a high performance, liquid coating system consisting of a coat of inorganic zinc rich primer with an inorganic finish coat. This system offers extended service life beyond traditional paint systems while maintaining the benefits and ease a of liquid applied coating system. A discussion of how this system can be used for new and rehab bridges will be presented. Novel, long- term performance data comparing traditional three coat paint, galvanizing, and metalizing will also be reviewed.
