UMaine Advanced Structures and Composites Center to Celebrate National Recognition for Bridge-in-a-Backpack
Contact: Joe Carr, joe.carr@umit.maine.edu, 207-581-3571
Roberta Laverty, Roberta.laverty@umit.maine.edu, 207-581-2110
The Pankow Award, one of the engineering profession’s highest honors, will be presented to Advanced Structures and Composites Center Director Habib Dagher at the American Society for Civil Engineering (ASCE) outstanding projects and awards gala in Washington D.C. on March 31. ASCE, founded in 1852, is America’s oldest national engineering society and represents over 140,000 members. The Charles Pankow Award for Innovation was established by ASCE to celebrate collaboration in innovative design, materials, or construction-related research and development transferred into practice in a sustainable manner.
As a follow-up to that event, the Friday UMaine celebration will provide an opportunity for all of those who have worked developing and commercializing the technology to be acknowledged and thanked for their critical role in the success of the Bridge-in-a-Backpack™.
As part of the April 1 celebration, Peter Vigue, president and CEO of Cianbro Corporation, who nominated Bridge-in-a-BackpackTM for the award, will recognize the collaboration which made this honor possible – the partnership of the University of Maine, the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT), and Advanced Infrastructure Technologies (AIT), the Orono-based company commercializing the technology. MDOT Chief Engineer Kenneth Sweeney and AIT President and CEO Brit Svoboda will represent Maine DOT and AIT, respectively.
“UMaine’s Composites Center is truly humbled to receive this prestigious national award from ASCE. The award goes to the many students and staff who have worked on this new technology at UMaine including professors Roberto Lopez-Anido, William Davids and Eric Landis, along with professional engineer Larry Parent, and our partners at the Maine DOT and Advanced Infrastructure Technologies. At a time where national and state budgets are tight, this new technology reduces the cost of bridges, and allows for faster construction. One bridge that was recently built in North Anson was completed in less than two weeks, including removing the existing bridge,” Dagher says.
The UMaine-patented Bridge-in-a-Backpack™ technology uses carbon fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite arch tubes that serve as superstructure components to efficiently carry bridge design loads. A 70-foot tube can fit in a “hockey bag,” can be inflated on site using an air compressor running off a pick-up truck, can be bent to any shape, infused with a resin, and becomes stronger than steel in about three hours. FRP tubes provide several functions. They act as lightweight external reinforcement for concrete, provide a form for the concrete, and protect the concrete from corrosion/spalling. This system of structural reinforcement eliminates the need for steel rebar inside the structure. Bridge-in-a-Backpack™ arches are a
lightweight, long lasting, alternative to steel and precast concrete. The system is easily transportable and do not require the heavy equipment or large crews needed to handle traditional construction materials. A 70 ft arch span weighs about 200 lbs, compared to over 40,000 lbs for conventional bridge girders,
“We believe that new technologies are critical to repairing and/or replacing deficient infrastructure with a more cost effective, longer lasting product compared to traditional construction,” said Brit Svoboda, president and CEO of AIT. “This award reinforces the positive response we received from the marketplace for our current bridge systems. In the field this technology has proven to be highly customizable, safe, cost competitive composite bridge system. We thank the ASCE for recognizing this technology with this prestigious award.”