INFRASTRUCTURE RESEARCH PROGRAM

Approximately 186,000 of the 208,505 steel bridges (89%) of the National Bridge Inventory of the US are protected by lead-based paint. Nearly 103,000 bridges (or ~50% of the total) are classified as deficient and it has become clear that lead-based paints and primers used on bridges and for general road maintenance are the dominant source of lead contamination (red lead) in the waterways and rivers.

The US Environmental Protection Agency regulations necessitate that the lead paint, contained in these structures, be removed and contained, and the structures be repainted with low volatile organic compound containing paints. The Thermal Spray Laboratory (TSL) of SUNY at Stony Brook (Long Island, NY) is performing cooperative research with the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) of the US Army Corps of Engineers Champaign, IL) in the rehabilitation and preservation of infrastructure. Under this collaborative program, R&D activities have been carried out on the following fields.

• Summary Paper of Activities
• Removal and Vitrification of Lead-Based Paints
• Thermal Spraying of Polymers
• Automation of Infrastructure Maintenance
• Publications on Infrastructure Research
• Rehabilitating Infrastructure with Thermal Spray
• Pictures from the Program
• Thermal Spray related organizations, companies, and laboratories
  • Thermal Spray GLOSSARY at ASM
  • Journal of Thermal Spray Technology
  • Professional Organizations:
    • The American Society for Testing of Materials: ASTM
    • The American Welding Society
    • The International Thermal Spray Association
    • The National Association of Corrosion Engineers International
    • Steel Structures Painting Council
    • The Thermal Spray Society: ASM International
    • More Materials Science related organizations and laboratories (dozens)
  • Companies
    • Beijing Bridge Tech-Trading (PRC)
    • Applied Coatings: thermal/plasma-spray and PVD-metallization
    • Castolin/Eutectic: thermal/plasma-spray
    • Copeland
    • Duke Scientific: particle-size standards
    • Hard Face Alloys
    • HTI Technologies
    • International Metalizing Corporation
    • NanoPowders
    • Ohio Structures
    • OSU Maschinenbau
    • Plasma Processes
    • The Platt Brothers: Email to: platzinc@snet.net
    • Praxair
    • SNMI
    • Sulzer-Metco Inc.
    • Swain Techn
    • TAFA, Inc.
    • Tecnar: spray-powder diagnostics
    • Thermal Spray - Buyers Guide
    • UniqueCoat: AC-HVAF thermal spray technology
    • More Materials Science related companies (hundreds)
  • Laboratories
    • CTSR - Stony Brook
    • US-Army CERL
    • More Materials Science related government laboratories (scores)
  • Other Resources (too many!)
  • If you know of more links, then drop us a line.

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12/03/2004 JQ