Patent ID: 7461427

Claim:
A method for the construction of bridges with concrete decks and at least two longitudinally adjacent bridge girders with a span between support pilings, each with a longitudinal axis, where the concrete decks comprise pre-cast concrete deck slabs with post-tensioning ducts and have a bottom surface, the bridge girders each have a top flange with a top surface and a bottom flange with at least one upper face and where the top surface of the top flange of the bridge girders provides support to the bottom surface of the concrete decks and wherein said method comprises the steps of: a. placing bogies with lifting devices between adjacent bridge girders to longitudinally travel on the upper faces of the lower flanges of the bridge girders; b. transversely placing pre-cast deck slabs with post-tensioning ducts on the lifting devices of the bogies where the bottom of the deck slabs is above the top surface of the top flange of the bridge girders; c. longitudinally moving bogies with transversely positioned pre-cast deck slabs on lifting devices to a final position on the span above the bridge girders; d. repeating the above steps until all transversely positioned pre-cast deck slabs on lifting devices have been moved to their final position on the span above the bridge girders; e. leveling all transversely positioned pre-cast deck slabs in their final position on the span above the bridge girders with the lifting devices on their respective bogies; f. post-tensioning all transversely positioned pre-cast slabs in their final position on the span above the bridge girders with the lifting devices on their respective bogies; g. lowering the leveled, post-tensioned pre-cast deck slabs as a unit onto the top surface of the top flange of the bridge girders with the lifting devices; and h. fixedly attaching the leveled, post-tensioned pre-cast deck slabs as a unit to the top surface of the top flange of the bridge girders.