Author: Lorella Angelini, Angelini Consulting Services LLC

Perspective of: Aamer Syed, Product Manager with Sika Corporation

I met Aamer Syed, Product Manager for concrete repair products with Sika Corporation, at the ICRI Fall Convention in Kansas City. We had a down-to-earth conversation about NTPEP (National Transportation Product Evaluation Program) and bridge preservation.

Sika has been TSP2 National Member for several years. Is bridge preservation an important area for Sika?

• Sika is definitively a national player in the bridge preservation market.  We are present in all the states with technical and sales people. As far as technology goes, we operate in the repair and protection of concrete structures with a large offering that includes epoxy sealers, overlays, silicone sealants, repair mortars, and strengthening. Working with DOTs is a big part of our business, no doubt about it.

Do you have experience with the NTPEP program?

• Sika was one the first companies to have products tested by NTPEP. This goes back 10 years when we worked with the Rapid Set Concrete Patch Materials (RSCP) Technical Committee.
• Sika tested products according to three other NTPEP protocols: Concrete Admixtures (CADD), Portland Cement Concrete Joint Sealants (JS) and Polymer Concrete Overlays (PCO). I had been a member of the PCO Technical Committee.

What is your opinion of the NTPEP program?

• On the face value, I think it is the best program we can have.  The idea of doing one set of tests and having it used by all the DOTs is something that manufacturers can definitively support. Manufacturers can submit a product to a large number of DOTs with one set of tests. It is a great concept!
• Is it a practical concept? I think this is where the gap lies. AASHTO needs to find a way to make the program more widely accepted, more widespread than it currently is. The level of acceptance by state DOTs is lower than I would like it to be.  Acceptance level should be as high as 80% correspondingly to 40 states. In my experience, it is between 20 and 40%, 10 – 20 states. NTPEP needs to drive the program to get more recognition from state DOTs.

Do you have suggestions for NTPEP improvement?

• In some instances NTPEP testing is treated as an additional set of tests required by some state DOTs. States say to us: “You have to bring NTPEP”. Then they say: “You have to do this set of tests on top of NTPEP”.  If you ask for NTPEP plus another set of test, you really ask a lot of manufacturers. It is very costly and time consuming for manufacturers to supply different sets of data for different requirements, for different DOTs.
• Once more, I cannot agree more on the concept of NTPEP. It is a fabulous idea. Increasing the acceptance level is where the work needs to be done.

NTPEP is testing program. It is a “photo” of a product. It is up to the single DOT to decide whether they like this “photo” or not. What do you think about evolving NTPEP from a testing protocol to a certification program?

• It is a great idea. NTPEP Technical Committees should be able to provide guidance to DOTs in order to help define an acceptance range for test results. Based on the wide range of climates we have in the United States, NTPEP could create tests protocols tailored to 3 to 4 climatic zones.  If my products pass requirements for two climatic zones, I should get approval by all the states that are in those two zones.  In other words, I may have a product that cannot be accepted in the states of the North-East, but it can be in compliance for the states of South-East or South-West that have a completely different climate.

 What about the representation of manufacturers in NTPEP the Technical Committees?

• Manufacturers are already part of NTPEP Technical Committees as advisory people, but not as voting members.
• It is important to strengthen the collaboration between NTPEP and industry associations. For example, ICRI (International Concrete Repair Institute) has done a large body of work related to testing programs for concrete repair material.  ACI (American Concrete Institute) has done work for polymer coatings overlay. I support NTPEP reaching out and collaborating with these and other organizations for the value of transferring knowledge.

Do you have a final recommendation?

• I go back to what I said before. The Technical Committees should make a bigger effort to promote NTPEP testing program to the DOTs. It is unrealistic to expect that a manufacturer spends $20,000 – 30,000 for a NTPEP testing protocol if it there are only a few DOTs that solely rely on that program for product approval.

Author: Lorella Angelini, Angelini Consulting Services LLC

Interview with: Ted Hopwood, P.E., Engineer Associate with KY Transportation Center

The National Testing Product Evaluation Program (NTPEP) by AASHTO is dedicated to the US highway industry. In the last 10 years it has gathered a lot of consensus but it has also raised some questions.  I am going to explore different perceptions of NTPEP through conversations with industry opinion leaders. The first conversation is with Ted Hopwood, Engineer Associate with Kentucky (KY) Transportation Center.

You are considered an authority in the industry with an outstanding 31 years of service at KY Transportation Center. How would you define your area of expertise?

• You can say that I am “1 mile wide and 1 inch deep”.  I deal with bridge maintenance and inspection with the purpose of keeping bridges in a good state. There are so many topics related to bridge preservation that no one person can be considered an expert of them all. I am kind of a generalist, who understands the topics and locates the expertise that is needed to properly address them.

Are you active with NTPEP?

• Yes, the KY Transportation Center is part of the NTPEP team. We do tests for concrete coatings.  NTPEP is a testing program focused on materials. People in the NTPEP group are primarily from highway agencies. They essentially define test programs and put together committees when they need to tackle a particular topic. Since most DOT labs are very busy, NTPEP committees tend to outsource testing, collaborating with universities or private testing firms. 

Can you summarize how the NTPEP testing program works?

• Speaking from the point of view of a manufacturer wanting to test a concrete coating product, the process starts with the manufacturer signing a contract with AASHTO. The manufacturer pays AASHTO so that AASHTO can pay the contracted lab for testing the product. Tests are done according to a protocol created by experts from different state Agencies. The manufacturer, who knows what tests are performed, furnishes the lab with the coating product. The lab performs some tests at its location, some others in the field. For example, concrete coating samples go to Florida DOT for exposure testing. When tests are completed, the lab develops test data, which are uploaded in a software program developed by AASHTO. This set of data is available to highway Agency material divisions.

What are your reasons for supporting NTPEP?

• Before NTPEP, when a manufacturing company had a product for DOT applications, the company had to contact 50 states to get approval. Each DOT created its list of approved products based on its own test program and the successful use of products in other states. This put a strain on both the manufacturers and the highway material divisions due to the amount of tests they had to perform. In other words, things did not work out very efficiently for either group. The NTPEP concept stemmed from this inefficiency. It entails having one centralized group (DOT, university or private contractor) that tests the products and provides data. Each DOT looks at these data and establishes its own criteria for acceptance.

Are there other benefits of NTPEP?

• I believe the NTPEP test data mine is another major benefit of the program. Almost any question about the performance of certain types of materials can be answered through the NTPEP test data mine.

What are your suggestions for improving NTPEP?

• Looking into the future, I suggest that end users will get together under the TSP2 banner and establish uniform criteria for evaluating the test data, either regionally or nationally. My vision is for NTPEP to evolve from a testing to a certification program.  Otherwise, the certification program could be a product of the TSP2 regional partnerships.

• I also think that the NTPEP program needs to expand the number of products to be evaluated for bridge preservation since a significant number of materials are not currently included in the NTPEP program. This also calls for a more structured relationship between NTPEP and TSP2.

If there were something about the program you could change, what would it be?

• I would try to create standardization for acceptance of materials nationally or, at least, at regional level. Right now each state has its own criteria for acceptance.

• I would also try to create a NTPEP test protocol for those materials that have niche properties that apply to a few states only. There are a lot of unique materials that are coming out, which are hard to characterize under the current NTPEP program.

• Lastly, I support the idea of creating a NTPEP test protocol for testing superior materials, not only the good ones.  How do we go from the currently established standards to accepting better materials?  How do we evaluate great performing materials, when the testing is set up to evaluate the good ones only? It is nice to have good performing materials for bridge preservation but we also like to get great performing ones.

What are you going to focus on in the next years?

• In the next couple of years I will focus my attention on test methods and procedures for the repair of concrete. I am also planning to study the diagnosis of concrete distress, an important aspect of the repair process. Too many highway repairs of reinforced concrete are not very durable. Successful applications require a combination of factors: proper damage evaluation, selection of repair material and procedure, and its correct execution in the field.