Long-term moisture content monitoring of nail-laminated timber bridge deck using Electrical Resistance (ER) method

This study summarizes the moisture content (MC) monitoring results of two nail-laminated timber (NLT) bridge decks in New Brunswick, Canada. The MC monitoring systems were installed in the NLT decks of two newly-built bridges, Clark Mill Pond and Shikatehawk No.5, in New Brunswick, recording the MC through Electrical Resistance (ER) method. The calibration test was conducted to correlate ER values recorded in Ohm with MC in percentage. It was found that the MC values varied from 9.9% to 18.2% and 12.8% to 19.7% for bridge Clark Mill Pond over 239 days and for bridge Shikatehawk No.5 over 189 days, respectively. Based upon these MC monitoring data, the NLT decks could likely not be prone to rotting caused by biotic attack during the monitoring period.