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More Than a Billion$ of Potential Savings in the US Alone Using the EFS Technology
State of Bridges
Report by the Federal Highway Administration
The continued economic strength and growth of the United States is intimately linked to the strength and reliability of our highways and bridges. The American public is experiencing the effects of an aging and deteriorating highway system. Increased delay, discomfort, and congestion, along with reductions in safety and service, are frequent. service, Highway agencies are struggling to cope with the increasing demands on their highways, and deteriorating bridges are becoming more severe choke points in the system.
State of Bridges
US bridges 25% of the US bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, according to the Federal government. Average design life of a bridge is 50 years; average age of U S bridges is currently greater than 50 years older in Europe. One bridge fails each week in the U.S. closure or collapse. Leads to increased congestion and subsequent pollution, economic losses, and loss of life.
in the State of Connecticut's bridge safety Collapse killed three Injured dozens inspection and bridge Collapse ultimately a maintenance program.
result of a growing fatigue crack. crack.
The Technologies
The CHIP The Fatigue Growth Sensor
The existing technology that will be exploited by the company is the Fatigue Growth Sensor (FGS). A second, complementary technology, the CHIP, is under development. Patents to protect both of these have been applied for to provide world-wide worldprotection.
Over a Billion$ of Potential Savings in the US Alone Using the FGS Technology
Learn the status of the crack immediately Learn the status of similar details on the bridge Prioritize repairs Repair only what is needed Verify the repair immediately Combined Process Options
Test Drill stop Verify effectiveness
Other commonly used methods, Ultrasonics including eddy current and ultrasound, cannot find cracks as small as those FGS Radiography can. Magnetic Particle Only FGS finds growing cracks; if a crack is not growing, no signal is produced. Thus, only FGS can verify if a repaired crack is still growing or not. Not dependent on sound, signal to noise ratio not a problem.
Similar to an EKG
Like an EKG:
EKG (electrocardiogram) - a test that records the electrical activity of the heart, shows abnormal rhythms.
Normal EKG
Abnormal EKG
Normal FGS
Abnormal FGS
Fundamentals of FGS
Uses passivation of the metallic surface to measure fatigue damage:
Sensor polarizes area, creates passive film. In growing cracks, cyclic loading breaks down passive layer. Micro-plasticity at crack tip changes amount of exposed Micrometal. As new metal is exposed, new, additional passive forms which signal. film changes FGS
The Differential FGS Set-up Set An FGS sensor array is applied to an area of interest and crack detection occurs under or around the sensor. The Crack Measurement Sensor (CM) is placed over the tip of the crack. The Reference Sensor (R) is placed in the same stress field, but where there is no crack.
Surface Preparation
Sensor Installation
Hardware Installation
Data Acquisition
Example Installations
Ratio of the CM sensor and R sensor data used as first decision metric -> Energy Ratio. Special software uses specially designed algorithm to determine growth activity. Possible Output No Growth Microplasticity (Future Initiation) Active Growth
Predictive Capabilities:
Threshold Lab Verifications
Controlled environment Precise measurements Dynamic Input Theoretical comparisons
Experimental Setup
Crack
22
Fatigue Data
23
24
Fracture Surface
27
28
Energy Ratio
Energy Ratio = Ratio of Areas Under Crack Measurement and Reference Measurement Curves
Conclusions
FGS provides additional, more useful, more accurate information for decisions. Almost immediate repair verification. Predictive information available for fatigue critical locations. Integrate with FASTRAN II.
Find hotspots in all structures
Bridges, aircraft, offshore platforms, ships, shipping cranes
Many Hundreds of Millions of Potential Savings in the US Alone Using the EFS Technology
Potential savings from deployment of the FGS system was analyzed by one U.S. state to be about $110M. Deficient bridges throughout the U.S. total about 150,000 (out of the total number of bridges in US which is about 600,000). The $110M savings for that one states deficient bridges, extrapolated to the total number of deficient bridges in the entire U.S., would be about $1.6Billion.
Management
Robert M. Bernstein CEO NIT Inc & Co-Chairman NIT Inc & NIT BR CoS.A. Leonard Berg, CEO NIT R&D Inc & Co-Chairman, NIT Inc & NIT BR CoS.A. Brian Austin, President, NIT R&D Inc William Berks, Executive Vice-President NIT Inc Vice Eric Winkler, Executive Vice President and Director of Marketing of R&D Steve Swearingen, Chief Technology Officer, NIT R&D Inc Monty Moshier Ph.D., Chief Technologist, NIT Inc Lon T. Berg, Vice President NIT R&D Inc & Treasurer