Infrasense Participates in National Bridge Preservation Partnership Conference

Boston, MA (PRWEB) April 30, 2014

The National Bridge Preservation Partnership Conference (NBPPC) recently hosted their annual meetings in Orlando, Florida. Hundreds of engineers from state DOTs and private consulting firms and suppliers attended the conference to share new technologies and materials relevant to bridge maintenance and preservation, and to discuss and improve current best practices for bridge preservation. Infrasense president Dr. Kenneth Maser presented a technical paper entitled "Bridge Deck Preservation using High Speed Subsurface Scanning", which outlines some high speed nondestructive technologies that can help agencies in their bridge deck preservation efforts.

The presentation focused on the importance of accurate condition information in the bridge deck maintenance process, and how some agencies are using high speed techniques such as Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Infrared Thermography (IR) to obtain this information efficiently. Dr. Maser's presentation described these technologies and how they are implemented for network-level bridge deck evaluations, using Infrasense projects in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, and Michigan to illustrate how some states are already using these technologies to help "keep the good decks good".

Infrasense has performed project-level and network-level GPR and IR bridge deck surveys. The results yield a quantity of deteriorated area that is used for accurate and cost-efficient rehabilitation planning. For network-level surveys, Infrasense maximizes its efficiency by surveying a large number of decks with its vehicle-based system (up to 30 decks per day). After completing the data collection, a multi-phase analysis is carried out. First, a quick and simple preliminary (Level 1) bridge deck analysis identifies decks in good condition and requiring no further attention. Those found to have more significant deterioration levels are mapped in detail (Level 2), providing data to accurately plan, program, and budget maintenance and rehabilitation. Over the past year, Infrasense has carried out bridge deck scanning projects in Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, and Wisconsin, covering over 200 structures.

Infrasense also uses GPR to provide continuous, accurate pavement thickness data to its clients. The determination of pavement layer thickness is currently the most common highway application of GPR technology because it requires no lane closures and provides a timely and cost-effective means of collecting continuous thickness data. This data may be used for network-level pavement management, project-level rehabilitation design, or quality assurance of newly constructed pavements. GPR pavement thickness testing is an ideal complement to Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) testing, especially when as-built records are inaccurate, outdated, or unavailable, and coring at every FWD location is not feasible. Infrasense surveys have covered over 10,000 lane miles of pavement, with projects sizes ranging from a few city blocks in Providence, Rhode Island, to 3,500 miles in Oklahoma for the state Department of Transportation. Most recently, Infrasense completed a GPR pavement thickness evaluation of over 1500 lane-miles of county roads throughout North Dakota. Data collection for this project was carried out in under two weeks.

Since 1987, Infrasense, Inc. has applied the most current technologies to the most difficult challenges in subsurface scanning. Infrasenses engineers are able to nondestructively extract critical information from a diverse range of structures. The firm has conducted research to advance the field of subsurface detection, while also providing valuable information to clients across the country. Learn more about Infrasense, Inc. and its services at http://www.infrasense.com.

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Infrasense Participates in National Bridge Preservation Partnership Conference