SBIR Phase I: Submerged Bridge Pile Inspection Technology

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段的研究项目将通过开发新型远程超声波技术（LRUT）来推进水下桥梁检测的最新技术。本项目的目的是确定所提出的技术是否可以最大限度地减少使用潜水队进行水下桥梁检查的要求。这将是LRUT应用于钢桥H桩检测的第一次尝试。这项工作的目的是建立在检测能力的基础上，研究如何有效和可靠的技术可以量化桥梁桩壁损失。本项目将重点对25%、50%、75%、100%的墙体损失进行检测和分类。将开发和研究检查和数据解释程序，以确定该技术对检测到的墙体损失进行分类的有效性。桥梁工程师将使用墙体损失信息对桥梁进行荷载评级。在美国有数千座由钢桩支撑的桥梁。由于用于进行水下桥梁检查的潜水队成本高昂，因此这些H型桩的状况未知。拟议的技术将是低成本的，并应在水线以上进行。所提出的技术的目标是在目前的检查预算水平下检查两个数量级（100倍）以上的桥梁桩。该技术将对美国桥梁的安全性和可靠性产生重大影响。该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I research project will advance the state-of-the-art in underwater bridge inspection through development of novel long range ultrasonic technology (LRUT). The objective of this project is to determine if the proposed technology can minimize the requirement to use diving teams for underwater bridge inspection. This will be the first effort to apply LRUT to inspection of steel bridge H-pile. The objective of this work is to build upon the detection capability by studying how effectively and reliably the technology can quantify bridge pile wall loss. This project will focus on detection and classification of 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% wall loss. Inspection and data interpretation procedures will be developed and studied to determine how effective the technology classifies detected wall loss. The wall loss information will be used by the bridge engineer to load rate the bridge.There are thousands of bridges supported by steel pile in the U.S. The conditions of these H-piles are unknown due to the high-costs of diving teams used to perform underwater bridge inspections. The proposed technology will be low-cost and shall be performed above the water line. The objective of the proposed technology is to inspect two orders of magnitude (100X) more bridge piles at current inspection budget levels. The technology will have a significant impact in bridge safety and reliability in the U.S.This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).