A Teddington-based Government laboratory has taken on its biggest sample for analysis to date, a 14-tonne bridge which is 20 metres long and five metres high.
Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), in Hampton Road, are set to use the bridge, which has been used to allow access from one side of the NPL site to the other for the last 46 years, as a demonstrator to try out different techniques for monitoring structures and will see it loaded until it cracks, repaired using new composite repair methods and then retested.
It will be part of a three-year Government project to encourage UK industry and UK infrastructure to use monitoring to maximise the lifetime and minimise maintenance costs for civil engineering structures.
Prior to the commencement of testing the bridge had to be moved across the site away from the demolition zone by Burton Smith and Beck and Pollitzer which used a 250-tonne capacity crane that extended nearly 50 metres into the sky earlier this month.
A spokesperson said: "It was then trailered across the NPL site, with essential co-operation from LGC, taking an hour to travel the quarter mile on Sunday, January 6, squeezing around tight turns and under trees before being lifted above existing buildings to its final resting place. The opportunity to have a large scale structure that can be abused in this way whilst being monitored is a once in a lifetime event and will provide evidence for the cost saving benefits of structural health monitoring."
Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), in Hampton Road, are set to use the bridge, which has been used to allow access from one side of the NPL site to the other for the last 46 years, as a demonstrator to try out different techniques for monitoring structures and will see it loaded until it cracks, repaired using new composite repair methods and then retested.
It will be part of a three-year Government project to encourage UK industry and UK infrastructure to use monitoring to maximise the lifetime and minimise maintenance costs for civil engineering structures.
Prior to the commencement of testing the bridge had to be moved across the site away from the demolition zone by Burton Smith and Beck and Pollitzer which used a 250-tonne capacity crane that extended nearly 50 metres into the sky earlier this month.
A spokesperson said: "It was then trailered across the NPL site, with essential co-operation from LGC, taking an hour to travel the quarter mile on Sunday, January 6, squeezing around tight turns and under trees before being lifted above existing buildings to its final resting place. The opportunity to have a large scale structure that can be abused in this way whilst being monitored is a once in a lifetime event and will provide evidence for the cost saving benefits of structural health monitoring."
Source: richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk
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