The Research Advisory Committee of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) selected an NJDOT project as one of 16 high-value research projects for 2019 in the category of Smart Maintenance and Preservation. Researchers from Rutgers’ Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation, Perumalsamy Balaguru, Husam Najm, and David Caronia, developed a new testing method for the durability of paint overcoat on steel structures, such as bridges.
NJDOT received AASHTO’s Research “Sweet Sixteen” 2019 award for innovative research establishing a new protocol for durability testing of structural steel overcoats.
On behalf of the NJDOT Bureau of Research, Giri Venkiteela, Research Project Manager, delivered a poster presentation and Pragna Shah, Research Project Manager, accepted the AASHTO award at the 2019 National RAC and TRB State Representatives Meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico in July 2019.
The new protocol allows for reduced testing time from previous methods, identifies durable coatings, simulates field performance, and has significant potential for adoption in accepting all new coatings. This new protocol will save money and reduce environmental pollution resulting from degraded coatings. The innovative research for this new protocol is described in the Final Report and Technical Brief.