Daniel Baxter is a bridge department manager in Michael Baker's Minneapolis office, where he also serves as a project manager and senior bridge engineer. He has been involved in both the rehabilitation, design, and load rating of many complex bridges such as the Third Avenue Bridge, Winona Bridge, High Bridge, Franklin Avenue Bridge, Lafayette Bridge and Hastings Bridge, all over the Mississippi River. He also recently led the analysis of 18 existing pier caps with sectional and strut-and-tie methods and helped develop procedures for the design of 38 new pier caps using the strut-and-tie method. He also serves as an NHI-certified instructor for multiple NHI bridge design and load rating training courses, including Strut-and-Tie Modeling for Concrete Structures. He is highly experienced in complex finite element analysis, has given eight presentations at the International Bridge Conference, and has published several papers in peer-reviewed journals. He graduated with a B.A. in Physics from Carleton College in 2001 and received a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in structural engineering in December 2003 from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a licensed professional engineer in Minnesota and a licensed structural engineer in the state of Illinois.
Professional Projects
In the article "strut-and-tie modeling for pier caps", we have discussed the definition of strut-and-tie analysis and how to construct a strut-and-tie model using the example of pier cap. After creating the geometry of a strut-and-tie model, the next step usually is calculating dead and live loads from the superstructure. This article discusses how to determine the boundary loads for a pier cap with a superstructure that has irregular geometries.
In this Midas Webinar Session, our Top Expert Engineer Daniel Baxter and Shayla Olson from Michael Baker International shared their knowledge present on pier cap designs using the strut-and-tie method and explain how to use the moving load tracer function in MIDAS and how to write nodal load definitions to the MCT program text file.
In the design project to replace the old Fulton Road arch bridge in Cleveland, OH, Michael Baker Intl engineer Daniel Baxter and his team has designed a 1,568-foot-long replacement structure for the original arch bridge, which retains the original design of six 210-foot-long concrete deck arch spans.
This presentation discussed the analysis and modeling of truss bridges. Topics such as analyzing truss bridges with pinned or fixed member end conditions, choosing between 2D or 3D analysis, and techniques for integrating detailed finite element modeling of specific regions of truss bridges into 3D models were discussed.
The presentation is on the “Replacement of the Fulton Road Bridge". The Old Fulton Road Bridge was replaced with a PSC I-beam Superstructure over Arch spans. The superstructure was 1,574-ft-long and continuous with modular joints at the abutments.
In this Midas Workshop Session, our Expert Engineer, Daniel Baxter from Michael Baker International shared his project experience about Post-tensioned Structure Construction Staged Analysis.
Load rating is a type of project that most bridge engineers work on at one point. Although people often misunderstand it is easy to complete due to working on existing structure, finding accurate values like demand-capacity ratio, influence lines, and rating factors can be troublesome, especially when the bridge has unique or irregular geometries.
Strut-and-tie analysis visualizes the flow of forces through any type of concrete element in the form of internal truss. The tensile members of the internal truss are called "ties" and the compressive members of the internal truss are called "struts" in struct-and-tie analysis. The joints that are needed to join the two types of members together are called "nodes".
In this webinar session, our Top Expert Engineer, Daniel Baxter, Bridge Department Manager and Project Manager, and our MIDAS Expert, Grace Shen, Bridge Engineer and Associate at Michael Baker International, presented four case studies of the Evaluation of Cast-In-Place Open Spandrel Concrete Arch Bridges.
In this workshop session, Sofia Puerto, Bridge Engineer and our Top Expert Engineer Daniel Baxter, Bridge Department Manager and Project Manager at Michael Baker International presented on the analysis and modeling considerations for truss bridges using midas Civil.
During this session, MIDAS Expert Daniel Baxter P.E., S.E. - Senior Bridge Eng. & Bridge Dept. Manager at Michael Baker International, will provide a case study of final design and uplift mitigation for a new horizontally-curved steel curved plate girder bridge with a 300’ minimum radius, located in Duluth, MN. Site constraints required that the structure, Bridge 69905, fit a specific span length configuration, which resulted in permanent uplift under dead load at the structure’s north abutment. The design methods chosen to minimize this uplift will be described, including the use of staged installation of select cross-frames and counterweight design.
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