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Since 1954, the National Research Council (NRC) has conducted the Research Associateship Program (RAP) in cooperation with sponsoring Federal laboratories and other approved participating research organizations. RAP provides highly skilled and exceedingly promising postdoctoral and senior...
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Current practice for infrastructure inspection involves predominantly visual inspection for surface defects and use of tactile methods such as sounding with a hammer or chain for subsurface delamination. While more sophisticated nondestructive evaluation (NDE) tools offer powerful alternatives to current practice, their effective implementation and deployment demand multi-disciplinary teams to integrate technology-specific expertise with sound structural engineering heuristics.
The development and implementation of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) data analysis and interpretation methodologies tend to focus on single, isolated technologies.
State departments of transportation (DOTs) routinely accept highway construction based on quality assurance (QA) procedures. These QA requirements consider, in most cases, the Federal regulations for construction QA procedures (23 CFR, Part 637 subpart B), the Federal Highway Administration recommendations on developing QA programs, and the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) recommendations for Quality Assurance (QA).
Asset owners are working to characterize, preserve, and rehabilitate roadway assets (bridges, tunnels, pavements, and ancillary structures) to keep them safe and efficient for the public. Decisions on specific actions require an understanding of asset condition and deterioration, which can often go unnoticed until it is too late for preservation and rehabilitation actions to be cost effective.
A management information system (MIS) is the best approach for increasing quality and productivity regarding the development and dissemination of data for use by others in the industry. This system ensures that data management needs are diligently addressed for each nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technology explored in the roadmap and also helps provide consistency.
Bridges have been designed using steel for more than 100 years due to steel’s superior versatility and excellent strength-to-weight ratio. Many steel bridges are still in service today, but they have far exceeded their original design life. As time passes, these bridges become more prone to deterioration and fatigue, causing asset owners to make decisions for retrofits or replacements based on the inspection reports or data captured. Currently, nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods, other than visual inspection, are only deployed when there is a suspected issue.
To organize the roadmap, the broad topic of NDE for concrete highway infrastructure are divided into the following umbrella topic areas: inservice highway infrastructure, construction quality assurance (QA), data analysis and interpretation, and implementation.
Research need...