Material Technologies Holds First Electrochemical Fatigue Sensor Training for Private Inspection Firms

February 05, 2008

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Material Technologies, Inc. (BULLETIN BOARD: MTTG) ("MATECH") held its first 4-day training for private inspection firms last week. Company officers and inspectors attended a four-day training in St. George, UT last week to learn how to implement an EFS inspection, which includes: receipt of contract, field inspection, collection and analysis of the data, and the preparation of a report. Attendees participated in 3 days of classroom and laboratory training with a final day of written and practical testing on day 4. Conventional bridge inspections are mostly visual, often done by inspectors using binoculars from a distance. This is not an adequate means of inspection, since 90 percent or more of the fatigue cracks are completely missed with visual inspection alone, according to the Federal Highway Administration. The fifty states of the U.S. as a whole have 190,000 metal bridges, with 39,000 structurally deficient and 35,000 functionally obsolete. MATECH's EFS is being used by states in three different ways -- as a means of prioritizing already limited repair and rehabilitation funds, as a traditional inspection tool since EFS finds cracks smaller than other technologies which leads to less expensive repairs, and as a repair/retrofit verification device. The firms which attended the training did so at their own costs in order to provide the EFS inspections to their existing clients in the near future. One official stated, "This technology will revolutionize the way we view bridge management and inspections." Companies will be licensing the technology from MATECH in order to execute contracts across the U.S.

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