UMass, MIT team tune up WMass bridge with new 3D-printing tech

AMHERST — A UMass Amherst and MIT team have successfully strengthened an aging bridge in Great Barrington with cutting-edge 3D printing, the university announced Thursday.
The 3D-printing technique is called cold spray, and it was applied to the bridge last month in a proof-of-concept demonstration.
The technique is expected to reduce the cost of repair key structures, like bridges, while also minimizing traffic disruptions.
Led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology mechanical engineering department, the team worked on the 1949 'Red Bridge,' formerly called the 'Brown Bridge.'
'Now that we've completed this proof-of-concept repair, we see a clear path to a solution that is much faster, less costly, easier, and less invasive,' said Simos Gerasimidis, UMass associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and a principal investigator on the project.
The cold spray technique involves an on-site 3D printer spraying high-velocity metal particles onto bridge beams. Repeated spraying restores thickness and structural integrity.
This method has used on submarines, airplanes and ships. The bridge test was a first, the researchers say. Bridges present unique challenges due to their size and because the 3D printer must be brought on site.
About half of American 623,218 bridges are deteriorated.
Other project partners include the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.
'Any time you drive, you go under or over a corroded bridge,' Gerasimidis said. 'They are everywhere. It's impossible to avoid, and their condition often shows significant deterioration. We know the numbers.'
Across the U.S. 49% of the nation's bridges are only in 'fair' condition and 6.8% are rated 'poor,' according to the 2025 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. The projected cost to restore them exceeds $191 billion. Roughly 9% of Massachusetts's 5,295 bridges are structurally deficient and require repair—a need that far outpaces available funding.
Read the original article on MassLive.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Miami Herald

41 minutes ago

• Miami Herald

Tesla Isn't Going to Like Its Robotaxi Rival's Newest Announcement

Tesla is days away from its June 22 robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, but autonomous rideshare company Zoox, backed by Amazon, has bigger news. Zoox has opened its first large-scale robotaxi production facility in Hayward, California-a 220,000-square-foot site equivalent to 3 ½ American football fields capable of assembling more than 10,000 vehicles per year at full capacity. While Waymo is the undisputed leader in self-driving rideshare service, Zoox is considered its top competitor. The company is currently testing in multiple U.S. cities with more than 20 vehicles and plans to launch commercial operations later this year in Las Vegas and San Francisco. Zoox also expects to begin onboarding public riders soon for its testing in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. The Amazon-backed rideshare service's autonomous fleet uses purpose-built, box-like vehicles designed purely for riders without a steering wheel or pedals. In perfect timing, the NHTSA just announced that it is streamlining reviews of self-driving car manufacturers' requests for exemptions from safety rules requiring steering wheels or pedals. The application, which previously took years if companies received an answer at all, is now expected to take months. Zoox will use its new Hayward, California, manufacturing facility for robotaxi engineering and software/hardware integration, robotaxi assembly, storage of robotaxi components, shipping and receiving, and end-of-line testing preceding deployment. Vehicles undergoing manufacturing at Zoox have robots perform specific tasks like applying precision-based adhesive for glass installation and moving cars down the line while humans complete remaining duties. Zoox expects its new facility's scaling to provide hundreds of jobs for the San Francisco Bay Area. Tesla also had a production announcement this week, but it received mixed feedback, causing the company's stock to decline almost 4% from Tuesday's market closing to the end of Wednesday's trading. The electric automaker is halting Model Y and Cybertruck production for a week at its Texas Gigafactory plant for the second time in two months, starting June 30. Tesla states the temporary shutdown is for factory line maintenance and other improvements aimed at boosting production, but a recent report from Electrek highlighted how there is an increasing number of Tesla vehicles parked in lots not linked to the company's retail, delivery, or service locations, indicating excess inventory. The now-shutdown Chesterfield Mall in Westchester, Missouri, is currently holding hundreds of unsold Teslas in its parking lot located about three miles from one of the automaker's dealerships. Tim Lowe, senior vice president of leasing and development for The Staenberg Group, told Fox 2: "Tesla has a short-term lease to park Tesla cars at Chesterfield Mall. We relocated them to the Dillard's parcel when we started mall demolition." Lowe added that Tesla is six months into its 16-month lease for the lot, which has held anywhere from 200-400 cars at a time. Tesla will launch its robotaxi service in Austin using its Model Y SUV, with the company's Cybercab purpose-built for autonomous ridesharing scheduled to launch full-scale production next year. Zoox's latest production announcement for its purpose-built robotaxi places it well ahead of Tesla's Cybercab manufacturing, increasing its likelihood of being Waymo's most significant competitor. The Amazon-backed autonomous rideshare company's other assembly facility in Fremont, California, is a site for its retrofitted test fleet and sensor pod configuration. Instead of specifying initial production targets, Zoox said in a release that it plans to grow its robotaxi production to match commercial demand. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Hill

2 hours ago

• The Hill

A judge just took Trump to task for his attack on science

In some quarters, science has a bad name. Some children, from their first exposure to courses in biology, chemistry, or physics, are intimidated by their quantitative focus or turned off by what they mistakenly see as its sterility. On college campuses, humanists feel under siege due to the growing popularity of scientific fields among their students. They reject the view of some scholars that because 'science follows the methodology of rational dialogue,' it 'transcends culture.' But, as the Trump administration proceeds to take down the existing infrastructure of scientific research in the U.S., all Americans need to rally to its defense. That is because scientific literacy and research are essential to the well-being of all of us and to the country itself. The administration claims that it does not want to limit or end scientific research, just rid it of the taint of politics. On May 23, President Trump issued an executive order alleging that 'Actions taken by the prior Administration … politicized science, for example, by encouraging agencies to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations into all aspects of science planning, execution, and communication.' The president promised to restore what he called a 'gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous, and impactful.' But on June 16, Judge William G. Young of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts exposed that promise as just a pretext for carrying out a war on science. He said that cuts to the National Institutes of Health grants mandated by the president and others in the federal government were blatantly discriminatory and rooted in prejudice. Judge Young ordered the government to restore most of those grants. This is not the first time in American history that the scientific enterprise has been used as a political football. Indeed, as a 2017 article in Scientific American notes, 'The reality is that engaging in scientific research is a social activity and an inherently political one.' Scientific projects, like World War II's Manhattan Project, which led to the atomic bomb, and the massive investment in science after Russia launched the first satellite into space, have been fueled by political goals. Moreover, the work of scientists on subjects like global warming can easily get caught up in partisan contests. Critics worry that the scientific enterprise will be tainted by the political agendas of those who supply funding and help drum up public support for the work scientists do. Those worries reached a fever pitch following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Science skepticism spiked as resentment grew over such polices as universal masking and school closures. Although polls show that trust in science has rebounded, a substantial portion of the population remains doubtful that scientific research is sound and helpful in making public policy decisions. Enter the Trump administration. As The Atlantic's Adam Serwer observes, 'The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science.' But it has done so by using a skillful kind of double-speak. The president's executive order puts the administration on the side of 'restoring a gold standard for science,' and guarantees that scientific research is 'transparent, rigorous, and impactful.' At the same time, Trump has cut science funding to 'its lowest level in decades.' The administration has taken a meat ax to research budgets everywhere, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, to say nothing about what it has done to research funding at universities like Columbia and Harvard. This brings us back to Judge Young's ruling. He found that the administration's efforts to terminate NIH grants 'on topics such as health equity, racial disparities, vaccine hesitancy and maternal health in minority communities' had nothing to do with the president's supposed commitment to 'restoring the gold standard for science.' Instead, Young said they were motivated by prejudice and a political agenda of 'racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ community.' Young took note of 'the administration's very public efforts to eliminate any trace of diversity and equity initiatives from the federal government, as well as its attacks on transgender people.' He did not mince words. From the bench, he told the government's lawyers that 'over the course of his career he had 'never seen government racial discrimination like this,'' and that he 'felt duty bound to state his conclusion about the government's intent. 'I would be blind not to call it out.'' Americans should not be blind to why the Trump administration is targeting science and what its consequences will be for all of us. As Serwer puts it, the president and his allies believe that the kind of 'truth-seeking' that goes on in scientific laboratories all over the country 'imperils their hold on power.' But whatever its motivation, the president's assault on science will leave us sicker, less prosperous, and more vulnerable to the ravages of nature. It will leave this country weaker and will undermine its position in the world. Put simply, America loses when science loses. Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

Forbes

3 hours ago

• Forbes

Opportunities And Headwinds Facing America's Emerging Public Companies

Cody Slach, Senior Managing Director at Gateway Group. While tech giants and trillion-dollar valuations dominate financial headlines, an entirely different group of companies continues to build, innovate and hustle for market share: small-cap public companies. Typically defined as businesses with market capitalizations under $2 billion, small-caps make up the backbone of American entrepreneurship on the public stage. And yet, they often remain overlooked by institutional investors, underfollowed by analysts and overburdened by regulation. Their journey is one of high potential but also high pressure. The Upside Of Being Small (And Public) Large corporations may have scale, but small-caps have speed. Without layers of bureaucracy, they can pivot faster in response to market signals. In a landscape increasingly defined by disruption, agility can be a competitive edge. Small-caps often trade at valuations that leave room for substantial upside. A successful product launch, strategic acquisition or entry into a new market can deliver meaningful growth—something harder to achieve in mature, large-cap firms. Many small-caps don't go public with dreams of becoming the next Apple—they go public to build credibility, attract capital and ultimately be acquired. For investors, that often means a built-in exit strategy with potential upside. In small-cap companies, leadership is closer to the business and often more accessible to investors. There's less institutional inertia and more incentive to perform. The Challenges Are Real—And Growing Public companies face mounting compliance costs, and for small-caps, these are felt more acutely. For example, in 2004, U.S. companies with revenues over $5 billion spent 0.06% of revenue on SOX compliance, while companies with less than $100 million in revenue spent 2.55%. With lower trading volumes and limited analyst coverage, small-cap stocks are more vulnerable to price swings. That can deter institutional capital and discourage long-term investors during market downturns. Small-cap firms often struggle to attract top-tier talent, particularly in competitive sectors like AI or biotech. Access to capital is similarly constrained, especially in tighter interest rate environments or risk-off markets. Policy Could Help—Or Hurt There's bipartisan support for revisiting regulations that disproportionately burden small public firms. Reforms could include simplified reporting for companies under a certain revenue threshold or extending the 'emerging growth company' benefits of the JOBS Act. But nothing moves quickly in Washington, and without relief, some promising firms may opt to stay private indefinitely. The Risks Can Be Justified But if investors get it right, the returns can outperform. One way to look at this is the standard deviation of daily returns—i.e., the amount prices move away from the mean. Let's take a look at that for two indices that are synonymous with small-cap and large-cap—the Russell 2000 and Russell 1000 indexes, respectively. According to LSEG, since inception, the standard deviation for the Russell 1000 was 17.54% vs. 20.01% for the Russell 2000. While those numbers may seem small, they measure a large sample size, with outliers to the upside and downside. Picking the right stock in the Russell 2000 can generate substantial alpha. While large-cap tech giants dominate headlines, small-cap public companies (again, market caps under $2 billion) play a vital yet often overlooked role in the U.S. economy. These firms offer agility, growth potential and acquisition appeal, making them attractive to investors seeking outsized returns. Their leadership is typically more accessible and accountable, and they often trade at valuations that allow for substantial upside. However, small-caps also face significant challenges: disproportionately high regulatory compliance costs, liquidity issues, limited analyst coverage, difficulty attracting talent and restricted access to capital. Policy reforms could ease some of these burdens, but progress is slow. Despite higher volatility, as shown by the Russell 2000's greater standard deviation compared to the Russell 1000, smart investors can achieve meaningful returns by picking the right small-cap stocks. Forbes Business Development Council is an invitation-only community for sales and biz dev executives. Do I qualify?