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FHwa
Nondes t ruc t i ve Eva l uat i on Center Deve l opment
1996
–present
WJE was engaged to oversee the design, construction, and operation of a new national resource center to support evaluation of the nation’s highway
bridges: the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Center. The NDE Center is the only facility in the world dedicated
entirely to the evaluation and validation of NDE technologies for highway infrastructure.
Since the NDE Center was completed in June 1998, WJE has provided full-time professional staffing to conduct ongoing research related to
evaluation and validation of NDE technologies. Following the original contract, WJE has been awarded three additional contracts to continue
staffing and operation of the center.
Notes of Interest
• In the initial phase of the project, WJE conducted a design
study and developed detailed plans for the construction of
the NDE Center.
• Regular inspection of the nation’s bridges is a massive
undertaking. There are approximately 600,000 bridges in
the current inventory. In 1997, the FHWA reported
that more than 30 percent of these bridges are either
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
• The NDE Center supports five test bridges, all located
within 100 miles of the center, for the field validation of
emerging NDE technologies.
• Since 1996, WJE has completed more than twenty-five
task orders to validate NDE technology for the evaluation
of our nation’s bridges.
WJE 50 Years