The first International Symposium on Non-Destructive Testing for Design Evaluation and Construction Inspection held January 18, 2008 in Washington, DC, drew more than 140 members of the international highway renewal community. This was the first of two symposia organized in collaboration with the Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories (FEHRL).

The primary objective of the first symposium was to quickly disseminate the preliminary research plan to the technical community and to gather the individual feedback from the attendees for the researchers to use in finalizing the plan. A secondary objective is to engage the interest of the international technical community in the research that will follow the completion of the ongoing project.

The presentations, which focused on the preliminary plan developed under SHRP 2 Project R06, can be viewed by clicking the presentation title below.

Randell Iwasaki, Chairman of the SHRP 2 Renewal Technical Coordinating Committee, welcomed the attendees and thanked them for their participation and interest in the symposium. In his introductory remarks, Steve Phillips, Secretary-General for FEHRL, presented general background and objectives of the research programs at FEHRL. After welcoming the attendees, Neil Hawks, Director of SHRP2, explained the intent of the symposium.

A. Robert Raab, chief program officer for the SHRP 2 Renewal focus area, provided an overview of the goals and status of the Renewal Research program.

Following the introduction, Andrew Wimsatt, the principal investigator for project R06 presented background information about the research project and a summary of the preliminary findings regarding engineering properties and parameter measuring needs.

Stefan Hurlebaus, Tom Scullion and Emmanuel Fernando, from the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), presented the preliminary findings for existing and emerging technologies & techniques from project R06. Christian Cremona of the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées (LCPC) presented FEHRL’s perspective on existing and emerging technologies.

After a discussion about the technologies presented at the session, Emmanuel Fernando and Tom Scullion presented the proposed research plan to further assess the most promising current technologies. Following, Andrew Wimsatt and Tom Scullion presented the preliminary finding regarding the measuring needs unmet by current and emerging technologies/techniques. Brian Ferne of the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) presented FEHRL’s outlook on needs unmet by current and emerging technologies.

Andrew Wimsatt presented the following presentation which was focused on the preliminary proposed plan to develop new testing methods to satisfy unmet needs.

Neil Hawks, Director of SHRP2, and Bojan Leben from the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute (ZAG), concluded the symposium and extended an invitation to the participants to attend the second International Symposium on Non-Destructive Testing for Design Evaluation and Construction Inspection.

The second SHRP 2 International Symposium on Non-Destructive Testing for Design Evaluation and Construction Inspection is scheduled for April 25, 2008 in during the second European Road Transportation Research Arena (2008 TRA) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The primary objective for the second symposium is to disseminate the final research plan to the technical community and to solicit feedback and suggestions from individuals on the development of follow-up projects in accordance with the plan.