New tech to help protect bridges, other infrastructure from scour
Monday, November 15, 2010 - 11:33
in Earth & Climate
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a sensor that allows engineers to assess the scour potential of soils at various depths and on-site for the first time a technology that will help evaluate the safety of civil infrastructure before and after storm events. Scour, or erosion of soil around structures due to water flow, is responsible for a wide range of critical infrastructure failures from unstable bridges to the levees that gave way in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.