INFRASTRUCTURES * USA - The Bridge to Smart Technology

Smart technology that makes infrastructure safer and more efficient is ready just in time for a flood of government spending

Minneapolis.MN,USA -Bussines Weeks -19 Feb 2009: -- The new replacement for the highway bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007 is replete with sensors and other electronics that continually monitor the structure and automatically operate a winter anti-icing system. "The technology is about speed, it's about quality, and it's about efficiency," says civil engineer Jon Chiglo, who managed the $234 million project for the Minnesota Transportation Department... With the United States set to spend more than $500 billion on infrastructure in the coming five years, this sort of bridge is likely to become much more common, though there are disagreements over how much technology should be packed into the infrastructure... Meanwhile, some people are skeptical of whether tech-heavy infrastructure is the best use of stimulus money or whether the emphasis should be on producing as many jobs as possible as quickly as possible...(InfoImage by David Foster - The new St. Anthony Falls Bridge crossing the Mississippi River in Minneapolis has a half dozen types of sensors embedded in it. Here's what they measure)


* USA & France - NIST And French Lab to Study Weathering of Advanced Composites for Bridges And Piers

USA /France - NIST Tech Beat -24 Feb 2009: -- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is working with France's Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées (National Scientific and Technological Institute, abbreviated LCPC) to look at implementing fiber-reinforced polymer composites in civil infrastructure applications such as wind turbines, piers, and bridges.. The first planned project is to use NIST's SPHERE (Simulated Photodegradation via High Energy Radiant Emission), which produces high-intensity ultraviolet rays that accelerate outdoor weathering of polymeric materials and composites, to test long-term weathering effects on different materials... (Photo: Weather SPHERE: Researchers from France's National Scientific and Technological Institute and NIST will work together to learn more about the effect of weathering on fiber-reinforced polymer composites that may be used in bridges and piers. NIST's SPHERE (Simulated Photodegradation via High Energy Radiant Emission) accelerates outdoor weathering of test materials)


* USA - As Suspension Bridges Age, a Search for Failures
New York,NY,USa -The National Public Radio, by Joe Palca -23 Feb 2009: -- Engineers at Columbia University are attempting to develop a technology that will enable transportation officials to more effectively gauge the condition of suspension-bridge cables. Typically, inspectors visually examine cables a couple of times annually... Engineers in charge of the project feel that there is a more precise way of determining the status of bridges, so they have created an experiment involving the placement of sensors within the cables. The sensors will continuously track a cable's condition and also determine how long the cables will last...To ensure that the sensors provide accurate information, the researchers are placing a 20-foot piece of bridge cable inside of a chamber for six months and testing different weather conditions, such as heat and water, on it. "We are trying to create conditions that are more aggressive than the ones out there because otherwise the system will not be tested," says Raimondo Betti, an engineer involved with the project... (Photo 1: In July 1922, the Brooklyn Bridge was closed to automobile traffic after inspectors identified a slipped cable. Bettmann/Corbis - Photo 2, by Joe Palca/NPR: Engineers created this weather simulation chamber, which has heat lamps, artificial rain and salt, to test the accuracy of their sensors embedded in the cable)