Jan 21 2008
A lead article in the magazine ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES of November 2007 describes the Electrochemical Fatigue Sensor (EFS) as a nondestructive crack inspection technology developed by Material Technologies Inc., Los Angeles, Calif. EFS can determine if actively growing fatigue cracks are present in a bridge or other metal structures subjected to cyclic loadings.
The article describes the EFS system, which consists of a differential EFS sensor array, data collection hardware and data interpretation software. EFS is the only nondestructive field-testing device able to find growing cracks in bridge structural members as small as 0.01 inches in length. This is critical information that allows structural engineers to isolate problems and repair steel bridges.
Bridge inspections are mostly visual, often done by inspectors using binoculars from a distance. This is not an adequate means of inspection, since 90 percent or more of the fatigue cracks are completely missed with visual inspection alone, according to the Federal Highway Administration. The fifty states of the US as a whole have 190,000 metal bridges, with 39,000 structurally deficient and 35,000 functionally obsolete.
MATECH's EFS is being used by states in three different ways -- as a means of prioritizing already limited repair and rehabilitation funds, as a traditional inspection tool since EFS finds cracks smaller than other technologies which leads to less expensive repairs, and as a repair/retrofit verification device.
Robert M. Bernstein, MATECH's CEO, says, "MATECH has performed more than twenty-five inspections on highway and railroad bridges around the country, and we have every confidence that our EFS can save significant repair and rehabilitation dollars by its timely use, as well as avoiding lane and bridge closures which can have a devastating effect on the regional economy, not to mention avoiding potential tragedies of bridge failures."
The full article in ADVANCES MATERIALS & PROCESSES can be found at http://www.matechcorp.com/news_articles/AMP.pdf.