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| Matech to find cracks in highway bridges around Massachusetts  Material Technologies, Inc. announced that the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MADOT) intends to invite Matech to demonstrate its Electrochemical Fatigue Sensor System (EFS) on several bridges around the State. Last year MADOT sent Matech information on seventeen bridges around the state, with the intention of having Matech demonstrate its EFS on many of these structures. However, critical problems with their "Big Dig" tunnels created a large demand on MADOT's resources, so the EFS efforts had to be postponed.The EFS can find growing cracks in highway bridges and similar structures, including cracks below the surface, as small as 0.01 inches. This critical information allows the state's bridge engineers to fix the specific bridges in most need of repair. Using EFS, the engineers will also be able to verify that repairs are effective in halting further fatigue crack growth, by determining that previously repaired fatigue cracks are no longer growing. Being able to prioritize needed repairs, the state can realize significant cost savings. It can also repair the most critical bridges sooner, thereby eliminating the need to restrict the weights of some trucks and, most important, minimizing any adverse economic impacts. Matech has received a great deal of interest from federal and state agencies, following the passage of the $286 billion Federal Transportation Bill, which included funds to help states evaluate nondestructive methods such as EFS to detect growing fatigue cracks in steel bridges. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Construction News :: home page |