The aging highway and bridge infrastructure presents a significant challenge to effectively maintain their operational level and safety. Effective and reliable condition assessment of aging infrastructure, new materials, and new processes is critical to meet the needs and demands of the traveling public. Nondestructive evaluation technologies have an increasingly important role in this arena. Continuous exchange of information among researchers and practitioners on the application of NDE technologies for infrastructure condition assessment is necessary to develop these technologies and optimize their usage. Coordination and mobilization of experts to address this issue and establishing standards and certification programs is required to accomplish this goal.

The objective of this study is to improve the state-of-the-practice for infrastructure condition assessment through the application of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technologies. The study will investigate and develop standards and certification procedures to enable the widespread application of NDE by State highway agencies. The study will also examine the common needs of State highway agencies and identify critical condition assessment challenges. The study will promote interaction among highway agencies to share best practices, cross-train engineers and develop knowledge, and working groups will be formed to examine critical issues.

The project scope includes the following: 1. Identify the common problems facing the infrastructure owners. 2. Identify available resources from all the states, transportation organizations, professional societies, and FHWA to assess the problems identified in Task 1. 3. Develop appropriate partnerships to address the issues. 4. Identify and prioritize NDT/NDE methods to address the critical issues. 5. Develop basis for evaluation of the selected technologies in field applications 6. Demonstrate and evaluate field performance of selected technologies based on the standards set in Task 5. 7. Develop appropriate standards and certification programs. 8. Evaluate the success of the program.

The $75k is the minimum amount required. We are soliciting a minimum of $10k contribution from each state. The NDT methods and the number of methods studied depend on states participating and monies available in the project. If you have more questions, contact Sreenivas Alampalli of NYSDOT.