FHWA NDE CENTER FACILITIES
The NDE laboratories are the nucleus of Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Center, providing a facility for the development and testing of NDE technologies. The laboratories include a structural loading floor for constructing mock-ups of field conditions, a radiological laboratory used for creating X-ray images of defects, a computed tomography facility for characterizing materials, and an instrumentation laboratory used for manufacturing prototypes and developing new NDE tools.
The component specimens provide a realistic test bed for the development of new NDE technologies. Component specimens at FHWA NDE Center include sections of bridge deck containing delaminations, welded details containing cracks, cracked bridge pins, prestressed box beams containing corroded and broken strands, cracked sign supports, and other specimens with characteristic forms of deterioration.
Five decommissioned highway bridges are used to evaluate NDE methods under realistic environmental conditions. Two steel bridges that are open to traffic and fully instrumented are used to test NDE methods associated with live loading, such as new instrumentation for global bridge monitoring. These bridges are critical to evaluating the effect of restricted access, structure geometry, surface conditions, platform stability, and human factors on the application of NDE methods during normal bridge inspections. These test bridges provide FHWA NDE Center with a unique ability to evaluate NDE technologies under the same conditions that normal bridge inspections are typically conducted, providing a powerful tool in the evaluation process.
For more information, please contact either by e-mail or telephone.
Frank Jalinoos (202) 493-3082
frank.jalinoos@fhwa.dot.gov
