Case Study
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Bridge Cable Degradation Research
Altran Solutions Material Science & Engineering Center is engaged in a long-term research project to better understand the material and environmental factors that cause degradation and breakage of suspension bridge wires. Its work consists of extensive testing of bridge wire samples in numerous environments to discern the effects of hydrogen embrittlement, stress corrosion cracking, and other environmentally assisted degradation mechanisms. The result of this work will be a comprehensive understanding of the causes of suspension bridge cable wire failure and models to predict the rate of strength degradation. This will allow suspension bridge operators to determine when critical repairs are needed.
Expertise:
- High temperature corrosion
- Heat exchanger corrosion
- Microbiologically induced corrosion (MIC)
- Cathodic protection
- Coatings
- Flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC)
Services:
- Materials testing--standardized ASTM and NACE, electrical testing and evaluation, environmental testing, flow loop testing, mechanical testing
- Fouling control--microfouling and macrofouling
- Testing and simulation--cyclic humidity, salt-spray, microbiological exposure, pilot-scale studies
- Materials engineering
- In-plant corrosion monitoring services--plant surveys, coating assessments, electrochemical potential mapping, long-term monitoring
- Product qualification
- Corrosion control and inhibitor selection, design, and evaluation
- Training
- Failure analysis
- Corrosion of medical devices