The Electrochemical Fatigue Sensor (EFS), Material Technologies’ (MATECH) proprietary nondestructive crack inspection technology, is designed to detect cracks in structures under live loads such as highway bridges. The EFS sensor increases the safety of metal infrastructures and the efficiency of bridge management by providing more timely fatigue crack detection. This product does not require a skilled operator and can detect cracks as small as 0.01 inches in steel, aluminum, titanium alloys, and other metals.
Several organizations have conducted beta tests with MATECH’s EPS technology on actual bridges and have confirmed that the device accurately detects growing cracks in bridge steels. Additional testing was completed on bridges in California, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The results utilizing EFS were verified with more conventional inspection methods. In at least one instance, EFS detected cracks that were not discovered by an eddy current survey.
Another MATECH product, the Fatigue Fuse, is used to monitor the construction and reliability of aircraft, ships, bridges, conveyor systems, mining equipment, cranes, and more. Westland Helicopter, a British firm, tested the Fatigue Fuse on helicopter hub housings and successfully determined that the legs of the Fuses failed in sequence as predicted. Fatigue Fuses are currently being utilized on portable aluminum bridges for the United States Army.
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