Princeton Junction, NJ - December 2007 - Physical Acoustics
Corporation (
PAC), a member of MISTRAS Group Inc., announces the
awarding of a contract under the Steel Bridge Testing Program by the
Federal Highway Administration (
FHWA).
The steel bridge testing program aims to improve the quality and
safety of steel bridges across the United States by using nondestructive
evaluation technology to detect damages.
PAC's 16-Channel
AE Sensor Highway II Acoustic Emission (
AE) System
is one of the non-destructive evaluation (
NDE) technologies that was
selected for the new
FHWA program. The
AE Sensor Highway II
System is designed to monitor cracks in steel bridges, and the
effectiveness of repairs, by determining if pre-existing or known defects are active. The system also monitors the
inaccessible areas where visual inspection is difficult and determines if highly stressed areas show flaw-like activity.
The Sensor Highway utilizes Acoustic Emission sensors, as well as sensor fusion including vibration, strain gages and
crack gages, to achieve this result.
With the number of tools and technologies to detect cracks in bridges currently on the rise, the
FHWA hopes their
program will be a significant improvement in this area.
FHWA's main objective is to provide more information to the
bridge owner and a higher level of technology in order to assure asset integrity and safety.
The Federal Highway Administration (
FHWA) Nondestructive Evaluation (
NDE) Center was established by the Federal
Highway Administration in 1998. The objective of the
FHWA NDE Center is to improve the state of the art practices
for highway bridge inspection.
