Research & Technology Transporter (December 1997)

Collaborative Research Wins CERF Award

R&D Associate Administrator Bob Betsold and Research Engineer Bill Wright pose with the CERF award in the lab where the high-performance steel is being tested.

A FHWA research effort on high-performance steels for highway bridge applications won the Civil Engineering Research Foundation (CERF) 1997 Pankow Innovative Applications Award. Partners receiving the award with FHWA are the Department of the Navy and the American Iron and Steel Institute. FHWA also was honored as a collaborator on a new simplified monitoring system for which Strain Monitor Systems won the 1997 Pankow Innovative Concept Award.

The high-performance steel project, led by Research Engineer Bill Wright, developed new steel compositions that have high strengths, significantly higher toughness, and greater corrosion resistance. Use of these steels, with yield strengths of 485 to 690 MPa, will reduce cost and improve the safety and performance of our highway bridges. Development and research on the 485 MPa steel has reached the stage where it is already being fabricated into girders for use on major steel bridges in Tennessee and Nebraska.

The new simplified monitoring system for civil structures developed by Strain Monitoring Systems won the 1997 CERF Pankow Innovative Concept Award. FHWA collaborated on the system by contracting for its development through the contract research program. Research Engineers Dr. Steve Chase and Dr. Hamid Ghasemi led FHWA's interest in creating a monitoring system that uses "smart" metal alloys that can track and report damage done to various structures. This technology combines a series of metal alloys trademarked as the "IntelliSense" device that, when strained or stretched, becomes magnetized. The resulting ferromagnetism is directly relational to the amount of strain, allowing its creators to make the claim that this monitor can detect strain from as little as 20 micro-strains.

The Innovative Applications Award recognizes the contribution of an organization or collaborative team that demonstrates innovative approaches to design, materials use, or the construction process that has been transferred into practice. The Innovative Concept Award was designed to stimulate original and creative concepts with real potential for application in practice. Applications for these awards were accepted from public and private industry, academia, and Government agencies from around the world.
-- Jim Cooper, (202) 493-3023.