Startup’s sensor tech aims for better bridge inspections
&A talks to Kevin McMullen, a UConn civil engineering graduate student who founded a startup called NexGen Infrastructure, which provides state-of-the-art bridge monitoring systems.
The technology uses force-sensing pads (sensors) to provide continuous electronic monitoring and data collection that allows engineers to better evaluate and react to changes in a bridge's performance over its lifespan.
UConn Engineering professor Hadi Bozorgmanesh started a program at UConn to develop engineering students into entrepreneurs. McMullen took the first experiential tech entrepreneurship course in 2015, where he developed NexGen's technology. His co-founders were UConn professor Arash Esmaili Zaghi and grad student Alexandra Hain.
Q: Is this type of bridge monitoring new? It seems like in the not-too-distant past the state had bridge inspectors. Does this automate the process and eliminate the need for them?
A: Research projects have been conducted by other universities and companies to integrate different types of sensors into bridge bearings to monitor their performance. A majority of these projects have significant concerns regarding cost, constructability and implementation.
A current method commonly used to monitor and evaluate a bridge's performance is structural health monitoring. Structural health monitoring studies are commonly conducted on bridges of interest or concern to determine how they are functioning under daily traffic. These studies consist of applying various sensors at several locations on a bridge to monitor force, strain and displacement. This process is tedious, expensive, and is only used to monitor a small number of critical bridges.
Bridge inspectors are still required to inspect every bridge at least every two years. This involves visual inspection of every component of the bridge. They look at structural components such as corrosion and cracking. The development of a force sensing bridge bearing that can monitor a bridge's performance under traffic loads will not eliminate the need for visual bridge inspection. However, it will provide engineers with data to make more informed decisions regarding a bridge's performance and justify or reevaluate findings from initial visual inspection of the structure. Unlike visual inspection, this bearing will allow for continuous monitoring.
Q: One of the benefits of your new product is determining if a bridge is overstressed and carrying more weight than its design intends. Will there be real-time monitoring of bridges?
A: This force-sensing bridge bearing may serve as a tool for engineers to complete real-time monitoring. This may allow engineers to tailor rehabilitation designs and schedules to the current performance of the bridge. This is a major benefit to assist with inspection techniques as it provides up-to-date performance results as opposed to data being collected every two years.
The data collected from these bridge bearings may be used to evaluate bridge designs as well. Bridges may be redesigned due to the performance results. This could be completed by posting a weight limit for the bridge or by rehabilitating the structure. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Jepsen sees ‘not insubstantial’ risk in casino expansion
Allowing Connecticut's Indian tribes to operate a casino outside of tribal lands poses legal risks that "are not insubstantial" to the more than $200 million in casino receipts due annually to the state, Attorney General George Jepsen wrote Monday in a formal legal opinion.
Jepsen's eight-page analysis could present a major political hurdle to the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes' plans to build a $300 million satellite casino in East Windsor.
The tribes say such a facility is crucial to blunt the projected loss Connecticut's gaming industry faces from the $950 million casino and entertainment center MGM Resorts International expects to open next year in Springfield, Mass.
"The risks attendant to authorizing casino gaming facility operated by an entity jointly owned by the MPTN (Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation) and Mohegan (tribe,) while impossible to quantify with precision, are not insubstantial and cannot be mitigated with confidence," Jepsen wrote in an opinion submitted to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. "We are not in a position to opine on the nature or extent of the economic or other benefits that may result from approving such an entity or whether an such benefits justify the risks."
According to Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan officials, the benefits of a new casino are overwhelming when taken in perspective. Specifically they say, Connecticut could not eliminate, but could substantially reduce a major hit to its gaming industry.
An analysis prepared for the tribes by gaming consultant Clyde Barrow estimates that the MGM facility — which is more than halfway complete and expected to open in 2018 — would cause the loss of 9,300 jobs and $702 million in revenue to Connecticut's casinos during its first three years of operation.
Barrow's projections are that a satellite facility would recapture 46 percent of the jobs and 53 percent of the revenue the Connecticut industry otherwise would lose. The tribes also say the new casino would create almost 4,300 new permanent jobs — either at the casino or at surrounding related businesses — and 2,300 temporary construction jobs.
But MGM officials and others argue that legalizing casino gaming within the state — currently it only is permitted on sovereign tribal land — would lead federal officials to revisit a nearly 25-year-old agreement between the tribes and the state.
Under that agreement, Connecticut suspended legal objections it had to casino operations and the use of video slots — in exchange for 25 percent of video slot revenues. That compact is worth an estimated $267 million to the state this fiscal year, though the take is projected to drop by 2019 to just below $200 million. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
What fans, taxpayers get with a $250M XL Center makeover
State lawmakers have a difficult decision in the months ahead on whether or not to invest $250 million to renovate the aging XL Center.
But the much harder task will be the actual reconstruction of the 42-year-old facility, should the project get the go-ahead.
The most demanding chore, state officials say, will be managing the flow of the entire four-year project in a way that bookends sports activity around the late spring and summer construction season.
Michael Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA), and Robert Saint, director of construction services, said in a recent, wide-ranging interview inside the building's newest addition, the "fan club," that everything from acquiring the adjacent atrium and storefronts so the building can front Trumbull Street, to moving suites to floor level and replacing electrical, HVAC and plumbing systems constitutes a challenge.
But oversight over four years — from April through August, gradually exposing sports fans and even occasional concert-goers, to new digs — has to flow smoothly and in a way that doesn't disrupt ongoing hockey and basketball seasons, they said.
"Doing the work in a short period of time, and having the building meet all the life safety codes and at the end of that period be useable, that's the biggest challenge," Saint said.
Opened as the Hartford Civic Center in 1975 and formerly home to the Hartford Whalers, the XL Center has weathered a roof collapse in 1978 and loss of pro hockey in 1997. With a capacity today of approximately 16,000, the venue was upgraded in 2014 with $35 million worth of improvements to mechanical systems, public spaces, locker rooms and a fan club area where people congregate before and after events.
It's that new fan club, with its tables and seating well above the hockey rink that doubles as a basketball court, that has demonstrated just how valuable a full-fledged renovation could be, Freimuth said.
"There are people in here an hour before game time just partying in this one spot," Freimuth said of the existing fan club area. "They wouldn't have come just to sit in their seats for an hour. There's two things going on there: The socialization and utilization of the building, and there's also money being made." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Speculation Arises About Infrastructure Grant Programs Under Trump Admin.
The administration is putting together a separate $1 trillion package to upgrade the nation's crumbling infrastructure through public and private financing.
But the optics of slashing federal transportation funds in his budget proposal while pushing for a separate financing package underscores Trump's challenge of balancing his promises of massive infrastructure investment and dramatic cuts in government spending.
“It's very inconsistent,” Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) told The Hill. “The real question is, with the cuts he's proposing to pay for this defense increase, how do we pay for the infrastructure plan?”
The administration is proposing to increase defense spending by $54 billion and cut non-defense spending by the same amount.
One item that could be on the non-defense side chopping block is the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program, which was set up by the Obama administration's 2009 economic stimulus package to provide an extra injection of cash for surface transportation projects.
Since then, the competitive program has distributed $5.1 billion to more than 400 projects across the country, according to the latest estimate from the Department of Transportation (DOT).
TIGER grants are a popular funding tool among cities and states, with applications often “far exceed[ing] available funds,” according to the DOT.
“This program is very popular with local and state governments and transportation agencies across the country because of its wide-ranging eligibility: it can fund everything from ports to rails to transit to highways,” Beth Osborne, senior policy adviser for Transportation for America, said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
“Since the loss of earmarks, this is one of the only programs that allows local and country governments to directly access federal funds.”
Other competitive programs, such as the FASTLANE grants created by the last highway bill, are also frequently praised.
Lawmakers urged a spending panel, during a “Members' Day” listening session, to maintain federal funding for transportation-grant programs.
“We've had nine bridges that have been forced to shut down,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
“In addition to advocating for adequate formula funding … I also ask that the committee support competitive grant opportunities in the FASTLANE grant program.”
But such infrastructure grants could get caught in the crosshairs of Trump's “skinny budget” – expected to land as soon as next week – that will cut $54 billion in discretionary money in exchange for a boost in defense spending.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, said she “fully” expects to see TIGER grants greatly reduced in Trump's budget proposal. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
CPV Towantic Energy Center under construction
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