BridgeGuard brings innovation to bear on infrastructure safety

Even though Upper Peninsula residents might not see BridgeGuard in action, the Hancock company is keeping citizens safe throughout the U.P, the state and the country. 

 

The part-service, part-product company helps identify defects in bridges and roads using an infrared heat camera. This beats the alternative, which until now required inspection personnel to close roads, redirect traffic and test for inefficiencies in the road by tapping at the surface with a hammer and listening for the reverberation. 

 

This is an antiquated, ineffective and dangerous technique, says Matthew Monte, president of Monte Consulting, which acts as BridgeGuard's marketing company and is also based in Houghton.

 

"The real benefit (to BridgeGuard) is there's no one standing in the roadway. There's a safety benefit," says Monte. 

 

In addition to thermal scanning, the camera also sees very small cracks. Data collected is then transferred into a format that bridge engineers can understand. 

 

"It's user friendly to the bridge engineering community, and, as a result, the state or the county can spend less time and money trying to figure out which bridges have problems and more of the resources repairing those bridges," Monte said. 

 

Right now, BridgeGuard technology is used in 10 states. And the company continues to grow. This year, it's one of 50 semifinalists in the statewide Accelerate Michigan business plan competition, which could net it some additional funding later this week.

 

"BridgeGuard's growth is attributed to the prominent projects we have completed from Washington D.C. to Florida, giving us additional visibility among state DOTs. Secondly, we have proven the BridgeGuard technology over the past several years to the point that networking and teaming efforts with large prime contractors have become more common," says Jay Ruohonen, president of BridgeGuard.

 

This company grew out of its parent company Talon Research, which includes engineers who use the technology to find hidden objects, like land mines. That technology is established, Monte says, but the engineers decided to create the technology needed for bridge inspection. 

 

They noticed that infrastructure built in the 1950s and 60s was becoming unsafe, and many government entities were overwhelmed with the problems and deciding between what was a big or small problem. 

 

The BridgeGuard technology helps identify degrees of delamination. A delamination is a fissure in the vertical conduction of heat through the concrete in a bridge deck or other structure. When the temperature changes, delamination failure increases, especially in older infrastructures. The BridgeGuard sensors can determine where those are and how severe they are. 

 

Not only is BridgeGuard offering an innovative approach to a necessary task, but it is doing so with an emphasis on customer service. Monte says BridgeGuard could operate out of any city in the country, since few of its clients are local, but it stays in the Upper Peninsula because of the quality of life and employees here. 

 

Jay Ruohonen and BridgeGuard CEO Dorothy Ruohonen are known, Monte says, for trusting their employees explicitly and fostering an atmosphere of communication. These are characteristics that fit perfectly in the culture of the U.P. and lead to connections with other companies with similar values, Monte says.

 

"Many, if not all, of their employees are from this area or have been in this area for a long time. They certainly have a network of support and collaborate with other companies in the area, in both technology and marketing, for example," he says. 

 

The company's future looks bright because of the continuous need for safe infrastructure. BridgeGuard presented to the Michigan House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infastructure in early October about the benefit to using its technology for inspecting bridges. The potential cost savings, the company argued, could be as high as $10,000,000 annually for the state of Michigan. 

 

"Taking care of bridges and roads is something we need to do, and BridgeGuard is helping us do that simple engineering in a much better way," Monte says.