Duplex coating perfected by MGC

Citation

(2007), "Duplex coating perfected by MGC", Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Vol. 54 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/acmm.2007.12854fab.002

Duplex coating perfected by MGC

Duplex coating perfected by MGC

Medway Galvanising has perfected the technique of duplex coating using the latest developments in galvanising and powder coating technology to produce a broad colour range for its architectural metalwork, street furniture, fencing and gate products.

Colour is increasingly being valued as a design medium for a range of applications from livening up a drab urban landscape to generating a soothing and calm environment. Medway Galvanising has an exact understanding of the galvanising process and meticulous control of the pre-treatment system in order to combine the galvanised finish and powder coating technology.

As approved long-term applicators of Akzo Nobel powders, the company can provide a 25 year guarantee on performance coatings applied to galvanised substrates, thus ensuring long lasting durability on every manufactured component.

“Colour has become an integral issue in the design of architectural metalwork” comments Phil Roberts of Medway Galvanising. “Our advanced technology within the production process allows us to produce a huge range of colours to satisfy all of our customer's aesthetic requirements.”

Material Technologies Inc.'s (MATECH's) New Bridge Inspection Technology Explained. MATECH to Initiate National Program aimed at federal and state agency education and implementation of MATECH's non- destructive electrochemical fatigue testing technology.

MATECH announced its new bridge inspection program aimed at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and state departments of transportation which will educate and advise governmental agencies and responsible departments on using MATECH's patented electrochemical fatigue testing process on critical transportation infrastructure. MATECH's engineers will advise the FHWA and State Department of Transportation DOT's regarding the company's bridge inspection technology which helps locate and determine whether metal fatigue induced cracks in metal bridges are increasing in size as part of the national bridge safety regime of inspection, maintenance and repair. MATECH's technology can help these agencies allocate precious resources, save repair and rehabilitation funds while helping insure bridge safety and uninterrupted traffic flows – not to mention lives.

According to the FHWA and the 49 State DOT bridge inspectors, visual inspection of steel girder bridges with crack indications at critical weld connection points resulted in an abysmal accuracy rate of only 3.9 per cent! In other words, cracks in critical steel bridge structural points were missed an appalling 96 per cent of the time by inspectors. There are over 600,000 bridges in the USA. Many bridges we drive on every day were built at least 50 years ago, and not designed to withstand today's enormously increased traffic loads. According to the FHWA, a staggering 39 per cent of all steel bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

“Without intervention now, these cracks will spread until they seriously undermine highway safety” says Robert M. Bernstein, CEO of publicly traded MATECH's, a Los Angeles-based technology firm which has a patented non-destructive steel bridge inspection system. The company has developed an effective method to pinpoint growing cracks. Its team of “bridge doctors” all engineers, specializes in detecting and monitoring metal fatigue in civil infrastructure, including steel bridges such as the Minneapolis, Minnesota bridge which collapsed over the Mississippi River on Friday. MATECH's mission is to provide a cost effective, technologically advanced, and accurate system for detecting minute cracks in steel structures which portend future problems. In essence, MATECH's mission is to put into effect the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. In this case, a simple inspection using the MATECH EFS system is worth millions of dollars of future costs.

Although each of the 600,000 existing bridges (including about 190,000 metal bridges) in the USA must, by law, be inspected every two years, they are mostly inspected visually by inspectors using binoculars or by tapping with a hammer. It can be argued that this is not an adequate means of inspection, since 90 per cent or more of the cracks are completely missed with visual inspection alone, according to the FHWA. The 190,000 metal bridges include 39,000 structurally deficient and 35,000 functionally obsolete bridges identified by the FHWA and the various state DOT's. The potential annual revenue from these structurally deficient and obsolete bridges from EFS inspections, at an average cost of $15,000 per inspection, is about $550 million. The potential annual revenue from all the states' steel bridges is $1.4 billion.

MTTG's Electrochemical Fatigue Sensor (EFS) technology identifies and locates minute cracks in structural metal on steel bridges. Metal fatigue and especially catastrophic failures of critical structural components in metal bridges is a significant risk and national concern. Most of the bridges within the USA are over 40 years old and have been stressed by years of repeated cyclical strain from millions of load/ unload stress cycles which can compromise the stability and integrity of metal structures and potentially lead to catastrophic failure or dangerous conditions.

Several companies focus on bridge inspection, using techniques such as ultrasound, radiography and dye penetrant, but only MATECH's EFS measures the activity of growing cracks in metal bridges during ordinary traffic conditions, similar to the way an EKG monitors the heart.

EFS can find cracks as small as 0.01in., too small to be seen by the naked eye. The $286 billion Federal Transportation Act, signed into law last year, allocates funds to help states evaluate non-destructive methods, such as the EFS, to test growing cracks in bridges.

“Finding small cracks early in a well- traveled bridge cannot only prevent disasters, but save cities and states millions of dollars in the long run,” says Bernstein.

For further information, please visit the web site: www.matechcorp.com