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US$8 million for UMaine Advanced Structures and Composites Center
2025-06-23 16:30  hits:128
 US Senator Susan Collins announced that the US Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Advanced Research Projects Agency–Infrastructure (ARPA-I) is moving forward with an US$8 million partnership with the University of Maine’s (UMaine) Advanced Structures and Composites Center (ASCC) to further develop technologies that will deliver bridges at half the cost, in half the time, and with twice the lifespan of many current bridges. USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy called Senator Collins to inform her that the department was moving forward with the partnership.

“The Advanced Structures and Composites Center has long been a leader in this innovative space, and I cannot think of a better partner for the federal government for this bridge building initiative,” said Senator Collins. “This investment will support cutting-edge research that has the potential to revolutionise how we construct our nation’s bridges – saving taxpayers money while creating good-paying jobs here in Maine.”

“We are delighted that ARPA-I has selected the University of Maine for this inaugural grant competition. It is a big day for UMaine and for providing more durable bridges to the public,” said Dr Habib Dagher, executive director of the UMaine Advanced Structures and Composites Center. “We thank Senator Collins who has secured the funding which enabled the ARPA-I program competition to be carried out.  Building on our years of work on composites materials, this funding will allow us to develop the X-BRIDGE, which will increase the speed of construction, increase the lifespan of bridges and reduce lifecycle costs, including installation and maintenance costs.”

The funding for this project comes from the USDOT’s ARPA-I Exceptional Bridges through Innovative Design and Groundbreaking Engineering (X-BRIDGE) program.  ARPA-I’s cooperative agreement with the University of Maine will develop and integrate new advanced composite materials into bridge construction and explore AI-assisted design tools. In partnership with UMaine, the X-BRIDGE program aims to demonstrate these technologies at scale through the construction of a prototype bridge.

UMaine’s X-BRIDGE project has a total of 5 major tasks, with a base year budget of US$8 million plus 2 potential option years of US$6 million each (totalling US$20 million for the overall project). It covers the design of the University’s Composite Bridge System (CBS) and its utilisation, developing and prototyping CBS technologies, and planning and ramp up to constructing a full-scale demonstration bridge using the CBS in partnership with Maine DOT. Full-scale construction of the demonstration bridge is expected to be primarily funded through an infrastructure owner and operator, and appropriate partnerships for construction will be finalised during the execution of the R&D project.

In addition to this partnership, Senator Collins has secured more than US$18 million in congressionally directed spending for UMaine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center through her role on the senate appropriations committee.