Researchers at ERDC-CERL received an unprecedented four Celebration of Engineering & Technology Innovation (CETI) Awards at Fiatech’s Technology Conference and Showcase in San Antonio, Texas, March 26. CETI Awards recognize significant achievements in technology research, development and implementation within the capital projects industry.
Dr. Bill East was named CETI Outstanding Researcher for professionals with 10 or more years’ experience. He was cited for career efforts in developing methods and related software tools to solve longstanding, systemic deign quality and project management challenges for a building’s entire life cycle. These efforts produced the ProjNetSM suite of information exchange software, which saves billions of dollars annually by reducing labor costs involved in manual entry, re-entry and retrieval of construction data. ProjNetSM currently has 90,000 users registered as part of ERDC’s licensing agreement with the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).
ProjNetSM tools are enabling a successful paradigm shift in the construction industry toward more accurate, efficient design, specification, construction and delivery of building products worldwide. In addition, through East’s technology transfer efforts, these products are publicly available at cost to national and international users.
One of the tools within ProjNetSM – the Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie) Standard – garnered a second CETI award for East in the Life-Cycle Data Management and Information Integration category. COBie eliminates the need to recreate or reenter facility data from non-digital sources by capturing this information at its point of origin. The standard is unique in that it allows facility data to be shared using any proprietary software that is Industry Foundation Class (IFC)-compliant. Building stakeholders can then access shared information using the cloud-computing network provided by NIBS.
Steven Sweeney won a CETI Award in the New Materials, Methods, Products and Equipment (NMMPE) category for leading development of a novel Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) System for Steel Truss Bridges. The system significantly advances SHM for bridges as it detects, monitors, and warns of failure based on integrated engineering models. Previous SHM systems only monitored individual bridge components rather than the bridge as a unit. Sweeney’s system monitors corrosion and detects degradation and changes to the overall bridge structure using a network of smart sensors placed at critical nodes. The system installed on the I-20 bridge at Vicksburg allowed local officials to quickly respond when a barge crashed into one of the bridge piers, keeping the bridge open and safe for 23,000 vehicular crossings except for a few hours, rather than days, while the barge was removed.
With industry partner Tesla NanoCoatings Inc., Susan Drozdz won the fourth CETI Award, also in the NMMPE category, for developing the Teslan® Carbon Nanocoating. This revolutionary epoxy primer contains fullerene carbon nanotubes that endow it with exceptional material properties. The Teslan coating has about 50 percent less by weight zinc dust content compared to traditional zinc-rich epoxy primers. With the lower zinc content, the Teslan® coating has improved adhesion, impact resistance, and flexibility, while retaining all of the corrosion protection properties of the traditional zinc-rich primer which are subject to failure with any coating defect or damage. It is applied without any modifications to the traditional paint application processes or equipment.
Fiatech is an international community of stakeholders working together to lead global development and adoption of innovative practices and technologies to realize the highest business value throughout the life cycle of capital assets.
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