Steel Bridge Research, Inspection, Training, and Engineering Center
Distributed Expertise Network (DEN)
A unique team of experts has been assembled through the S-BRITE Center to create a Distributed Expertise Network (DEN). Some of these individuals are housed locally at the Center while others are located at their respective institution. The DEN serves the role that no longer exists in many individual state DOTs today, specifically the existence of a group of highly specialized technical experts that are “on-call” to assist as issues arise. Providing access to such individuals makes the S-BRITE Center the national "go-to" place for solutions to complex issues regarding steel bridges, from high-profile failure investigations to working with policy makers on setting the future paths for asset management of the existing steel bridge inventory. No other such entity or resource exists in the United States.
Do you have a question for the DEN? Please contact Dr. Robert Connor with details at at rconnor@purdue.edu or (765) 496-8272.
The following experts are currently partnering with S-BRITE as DEN Members:
| Alphabetical By Last Name | Expertise |
| Bradt, Thomas | Field Instrumentation & Monitoring, Fire Damage, High Strength Structural Bolting, Repair & Retrofit of Steel Structures |
| Connor, Robert J | Connections, Fabrication, Fatigue, Field Instrumentation & Monitoring, Fracture, Heat Straightening, Redundancy Evaluation, Repair & Retrofit of Steel Structures, Sign, Signal & Luminaire Structures, Welding |
| Helwigg, Todd | Curved & Skewed Steel Bridges |
| Kieffer III, Chaz | Fatigue, Field Instrumentation & Monitoring, Redundancy Evaluation |
| Kogler, Robert | Coatings, Corrosion |
| Korkmaz, Cem | Finite Element Analysis, Repair & Retrofit of Steel Structures |
| Varma, Amit H. | Fire Damage, Impact Damage, Heat Straightening, Repair & Retrofit of Steel Structures |
| Washer, Glen A. | Non-destructive Testing |
| Alphabetical By Topic | Expert |
| Coatings & Corrosion | Robert Kogler |
| Curved & Skewed Bridges | Todd Helwigg |
| Fatigue | Robert J. Connor, Chaz Kieffer III |
| Finite Element Analysis | Amit H. Varma, Cem Korkmaz |
| Field Instrumentation & Monitoring | Robert J. Connor, Thomas Bradt, Chaz Kieffer III |
| Fire Damage | Amit H. Varma, Thomas Bradt |
| Fracture | Robert J. Connor |
| Heat Straightening | Robert J. Connor, Amit H. Varma |
| High Strength Structural Bolting | Robert J. Connor, Thomas Bradt |
| Impact Damage | Robert J. Connor, Amit H. Varma |
| Non-destructive Testing | Glenn A. Washer |
| Redundancy Evaluation | Robert J. Connor, Chaz Kieffer III |
| Repair & Retrofit of Steel Structures | Robert J. Connor, Amit H. Varma, Cem Korkmaz, Thomas Bradt |
| Sign, Signal, & Luminaire Structures | Robert J. Connor |