THE AASHTO LRFD DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS FOR BRIDGES - THE PATH TO ADOPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION

In 1993, following a five-year concentrated effort, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) adopted new specifications for bridge design as a co-equal to the time honored standard specifications - "The AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications". This paper summarizes the development of the specifications, outlines the decision-making process, introduces how reliability-based design and limit states are related to design load combinations, describes the limit state philosophy and introduces post-adoption maintenance and education efforts.