Chairman Fu introduced the building of the laboratory, and explained the reason why the laboratory is named as “safety and health of in-service long and big bridges”, and specified the four research focuses of the laboratory on structural damage mechanism, measurement of damage representation, safety alarm and health assessment, damage repair and function improvement of long and big bridges. He also hope that the laboratory can, through painstaking efforts, have a better command of structural performanceattenuation law of long and big bridges, truly build the safety alarm system for long and big bridges to ensure safety of in-service bridges, and further gather and cultivate excellent sci-tech talents for the industry and improve the technical level of the industry; and can also promote transformation and application of basic research for application, strengthen industry incubation and radiation, and facilitate commercial-scale development of related industries. In addition, he noted that the JSTI Group will effectively utilize its advantages in technology, talents, and financial strength, etc. to build the laboratory into a sci-tech base having international influence, with a view to safeguarding the safety and health of in-service long and big bridges of China, and contributing more results for the industry development. 

Vice director Jiang pointed out in his address that, the national key laboratory of an enterprise is an important part of national technical innovation system, and an important base for making basic research for industry application, gathering and cultivating excellent technical talents, and conducting sci-tech exchange, as well as an important platform for developing generic key technologies, strengtheningtechnical radiation capacity, and facilitating industry-research-university collaboration. He hoped that JSTI could do well in the four aspects, namely “overall planning and reasonable layout”, “key introduction and good demonstration”, “strict requirements and good quality”, and “integrating resources and diversified investment”, and aim to improve independent innovation capacity, as well as take reform as the impetus to make innovations on mechanism and integrate resources, so as to succeed in building the national key laboratory, drive the sound development of the long and big bridge safety and health industry, and make more contributions to the industry. 

At the academic meeting, Jing Mao, section chief of the conditions office of Jiangsu Provincial Department of Science and Technology, announced the establishment of the academic committee of the laboratory, and introduced the requirements of setup of the academic committee and the name list of members. The meeting also heard the annual work report made by Zhang Yufeng, director of the laboratory, and opinions and suggestions put forward by the members on next-step work. 

The national key laboratory established on the basis of the JSTI Group aims to focus on key problems of long and big bridges in China on damage mechanism, health diagnosis, status assessment, damage repair and function improvement, etc., and conduct basic research for applications and industry perspectiveness, with a view to safeguarding structural and operational safety of big and long bridges, and coping with the hidden danger of “premature senility” of bridges, as well as securing bridge health. (Su Xuan)

Further information

JSTIGroup has been committed to technical researches on bridge safety and health, and has successively established “Jiangsu road bridges engineering technology research center”(in 2004), and “key laboratory of the transport industry on long and big bridge health inspection and diagnosis technologies” (in 2008). In addition, the Group owns the first provincial health monitoring data center of China, and manages the world largest regional bridges monitoring group. Relying on these platforms, the Group has achieved a batch of scientificresearch results, and applied them extensively to quality control, safety alarm, status assessment, and function repairing, etc. of extra-large-sized bridges and many small and medium-sized bridges, such as Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, Hangzhou Bay Bridge, Sutong Yangtze River Road Bridge, Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, and MaanshanYangtze River Road Bridge, etc. As a result, the Group has taken a lead in terms of comprehensive strength and market share in the field of bridge safety and health research. In the past five years, the Group has won over 40 awards, such as the second award of national science and technology, the first award of Jiangsu science and technology, and outstandingsci-tech award of China Highway and Transportation Society, etc.