Purdue invention named Edison Award finalist
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A Purdue University invention that aims to reduce time and money spent on the construction and repair of concrete highway pavement and other structures has been selected as a finalist for an Edison Award.
The concrete sensor technology is a finalist in the critical human infrastructure category of the annual awards, which honor innovative business leaders and products, Purdue said. Prior winners include Honeywell, GoPro, General Motors and 3M.
The technology uses sensors embedded into a fresh concrete pour that measure strength levels in real time and signal when the pavement is strong enough for traffic. The goal is to expedite the construction of highways, bridges, airport runways and buildings and reduce the frequency of concrete repairs.
Purdue civil engineering professor Luna Lu has led the development of the technology, which since December has been available as the REBEL Concrete Strength Sensing System, a product of WaveLogix. Lu founded the WaveLogix startup in 2021 and serves as its CEO.
The invention will receive either a gold, silver or bronze award April 18 at the 2024 Edison Awards in Fort Myers, Florida. The sensor system earlier was named among TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 and Fast Company magazine’s Next Big Things in Tech for 2022.
Inside INdiana business reported in July that WaveLogix was testing the invention south of Indianapolis at the future I-465 interchange to I-69 south in collaboration with the Indiana Department of Transportation. The technology has been in development since 2017, when INDOT requested help from Lu and her lab at Purdue in eliminating premature failure of newly repaired concrete pavement by more accurately determining when the pavement would be ready for traffic.
“In the United States, the traffic jams caused by infrastructure repair has wasted 4 million hours and 3 million gallons of gas on a yearly basis,” Lu told IIB in July. “So this enables us to save millions of the taxpayers’ dollars and to save billions of hours that have been wasted.”
More than half of U.S. states with concrete interstate pavement are now participating in a Federal Highway Administration study to implement the sensor system, the Purdue news release said. Other states include Missouri, North Dakota, Kansas, California, Texas, Tennessee, Colorado and Utah.