ASCE Dinner Meeting New Hampshire & Vermont Joint Sections / Portsmouth Memorial Bridge 

You're invited to the ASCE dinner meeting with the New Hampshire and Vermont sections. Theodore P. Zoli, III, PE (HNTB) will present the Portsmouth Memorial Bridge Replacement project and the engineering innovations used during construction. Please join us for this great presentation, food, drink and a night of networking!

The design of the new Porstsmouth Memorial Bridge represents a departure from traditional bridge design with a focus on minimuzing materials.  Given that materials represents an even smaller portion of the total cost of a bridge project, HNTB focused their efforts on minimizing the cost of fabrication, transportation, and erection, eventually using 30% more materials than other bids.  The change in philosophy allowed HNTB to deliver a project with enhanced safety, inspectability, and with longer service life, for roughly the same total project costs.  This presentation will describe the design and construction process and where we chose to innovate, and how these innovations helped the project team deliver 5 months early.  The new bridge was opened to traffic on August 8, 2013.

The project was funded and is owned by the NHDOT and is the largest design build project undertaken by the department to date.

 Theodore P. Zoli, PE, Senior Vice President, National Bridge Chief Engineer

As technical director of HNTB’s bridge practice nationwide, Zoli has led the design of many award-winning bridges throughout the US and abroad, including the Blennerhassett Island Bridge over the Ohio River (winner of the Gustav Lindenthal Medal), the Leonard B. Zakim Bridge in Boston, MA, the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge in Omaha, NE, and the Lake Champlain Bridge between New York and Vermont (all finalists for the National ACEC Grand Conceptor Award).  Zoli’s work has been informed by his research into bridge safety and reliability with a focus on the design  of  structural  systems  against  member  loss  and  structural  behavior  under  unforeseen extreme events. He leads HNTB’s infrastructure security practice and has developed innovative protective measures for some of our nation’s largest and most important bridges. On New Year’s Eve  in  2009,  Zoli  was  featured  on  NBC  Nightly  News  with  Brian  Williams  in  a  news  segment entitled What Works. Zoli has received national recognition for his work in bridges including the  Engineering  News  Record  Award  of  Excellence  in  2012,  the  industry’s  most  prestigious honor. In  September  2009,  Zoli  was  made  a  MacArthur  Fellow  by  the  John  D. and Catherine  T. MacArthur Foundation. This prestigious award was granted for major technological advances to protect transportation infrastructure and for his innovative designs. With the generous grant that is associated with the Fellowship, Zoli is currently working on two initiatives: a lightweight hyperbolic  paraboloid  modular  roof  based  upon  an  adaptation  of  boat  hull  construction technology and catenary pedestrian bridges fabricated using synthetic (polyester) rope for use in remote mountainous regions.