If you're following along on our Building a Freeway series over on the ADOT Blog, you learned last month about caissons, the massive underground support substructures that help give bridges strength.
Next up in the series is an important -- but temporary -- structure that's used as crews build a bridge, tunnel or even a box culvert.
It's called false work, and it is used to support the structure until the concrete gets its desired strength and the bridge can carry its own weight.
Imagine that you're building a bridge out of popsicle sticks. Those sticks can't support their own weight at first, so you might use some blocks to give it some support until your glue dries.
Those blocks are the basic equivalent to false work...
But now what happens when your bridge is complete and it's time to take the false work out so you have a fully functioning bridge?
