Sources Sought Notice 693JJ3-24-SS-0002_Infrastructure Labs.pdf

SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE 693JJ3-24-SS-0002

“Technical Support Services Contract for Infrastructure Laboratories”

SECTION 1. SUBMITTAL INFORMATION

Issue Date: October 5, 2023 Response Due Date: October 19, 2023, no later than 3PM EDT Submit To: bob.p.brown@dot.gov

See below Section 6 entitled “REQUESTED CONTENT IN RESPONSE TO THIS SSN” for submittal and content instructions. One (1) electronic copy should be submitted.

This is only a Market Survey for written information. This is neither a Request for Proposals nor an announcement of a forthcoming solicitation. Information received will be considered solely to identify potential interest and capability for providing non-personal technical support services to support research activities of Federal Highway Administration’s Infrastructure Laboratories located at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC) in McLean, Virginia. The FHWA is not obligated to contact any or all respondents, hold meetings with any or all respondents, or solicit proposals because of this request. The FHWA will not reimburse costs associated with responding to this request and does not intend to pay for the information received.

After reviewing the responses, the FHWA may:

• Contact businesses or organizations individually to ask for clarifications.

• Invite businesses or organizations to attend or present at a virtual or physical workshop to further define the requirements and capabilities of the program.

To protect the integrity of any future procurement that may arise from this Sources Sought Notice (SSN), information regarding the technical point of contact will not be provided and no appointments for presentations will be accepted.

SECTION 2. INTRODUCTION

Program Background

The FHWA’s Office of Infrastructure Research and Development (HRDI) at the TFHRC in McLean, Virginia, conducts and oversees research and development programs and projects that address critical highway infrastructure needs and priorities of national importance. Studies focus on the design, materials, construction, operation, and preservation of highway pavements, bridges, culverts, tunnels, and other structures. In addition, HRDI provides expert technical assistance to other FHWA offices, other Federal agencies, State and local transportation organizations, industry, and academia.

To support ongoing infrastructure research and technical assistance activities, HRDI manages 10 laboratories. Four of the laboratories are relevant to this notice and are summarized as follows:

mailto:bob.p.brown@dot.gov

Infrastructure Laboratory Purpose Geotechnical Laboratory The Geotechnical Laboratory enables advancements in the field of soils, engineered fills, and soil-structure interactions. The laboratory investigates the performance of geotechnical features, whether natural or man-made, as they intersect with and influence the performance of the highway infrastructure including bridge foundations and retaining wall systems. The purpose of the laboratory is to develop and deliver innovative technologies, design and construction guidance, and expert technical assistance.

J. Sterling Jones Hydraulics Research Laboratory

The J. Sterling Jones Hydraulics Research Laboratory enables the testing of the hydraulic performance of highway drainage structures, roadway crossings of streams and rivers, and roadways adjacent to waterways. Natural geologic features and engineered structures are considered in the context of rainfall, hydraulic flow, storm surge, and aquatic organisms. The purpose of the laboratory is to address challenges attendant to the intersection of highways and water hydraulics through the development and delivery of innovative technologies, design guidance, and expert technical assistance.

Nondestructive Evaluation Laboratory

The FHWA Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Laboratory is a national laboratory and a keystone of FHWA’s research and testing efforts related to the application of nondestructive testing technologies for condition assessment of highway infrastructure.

Structures Laboratory The Structures Laboratory supports the Federal Highway Administration's strategic focus on improving mobility and ensuring a state of good repair of the highway infrastructure through analytical and experimental studies to assess the behavior of bridge, tunnel, and other highway structures under typical and extreme loading conditions. Research efforts aim to advance the state of the practice in design, construction, maintenance, and preservation through the use of material innovations, novel structural configurations, and new construction practices.

Laboratory deliverables help upgrade national bridge design specifications, improve the safety, reliability, and cost effectiveness of bridge construction and preservation activities, and ensure that highway related structures across the United States are performing appropriately.

Each laboratory is managed by Federal staff with support from 2 to 15 contractor personnel (typically researchers, engineers, and technicians).

SECTION 3. PURPOSE

The purpose of this SSN is to assist the FHWA in its market research efforts for a potential requirement to provide experienced researchers, engineers, and technicians to support the activities of the Geotechnical Laboratory, J. Sterling Jones Hydraulics Research Laboratory, Nondestructive Evaluation Laboratory, and the Structures Laboratory. The FHWA will use the https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/geotechnical/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/hydraulics/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/hydraulics/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/nde/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/nde/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/structures/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/geotechnical/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/hydraulics/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/nde/index.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/labs/structures/index.cfm results of this and other market research efforts to determine an acquisition strategy for future award(s) to support these four laboratories.

SECTION 4. OBJECTIVES

The FHWA has identified specific program components for each laboratory summarized as follows:

Geotechnical Laboratory

• Geotechnical Research Assistance on Innovative Geotechnical Design and Construction

Methods o Evaluate and advance geotechnical Strength, Service, and Extreme Limit States for new and existing geotechnical structures, including earth retaining systems and bridge foundations.

o Develop design and construction guidelines for geotechnical structures utilizing recycled and other alternative materials.

o Evaluate large diameter foundation elements and develop performance metrics controlling tremie concrete for mass underground pours.

• Geotechnical Research Assistance on Advanced Site and Laboratory Characterization o Quantify the variability in engineering properties of various geotechnical materials used in retaining walls, bridge abutments, and bridge foundations.

o Advance test methods and specifications for structural backfills, unbound materials, and treated road base materials.

o Compare laboratory and in-situ test devices and develop transformations between the resulting design parameters.

o Develop reliable test devices and methods to characterize behavior and performance of geotechnical materials.

• Geotechnical Research Assistance on Geotechnics of Scour o Compare soil erosion devices and the methods to determine shear stresses and erosion resistance.

o Correlate soil and rock erodibility with other material properties determined through in-situ and ex-situ geotechnical and geophysical tests.

o Develop default design values and/or new scour design equations accounting for the resistance of soils and soil-structure interactions.

o Evaluate erosion control technologies, such as geosynthetics, biomediated soil, and other scour countermeasures.

• Geotechnical Research Assistance on Geotechnical Aspects of Pavements o Evaluate base optimization, sustainability, and resiliency through time-to-drain experiments on unbound and bound materials and advance pavement design accordingly.

o Develop transformations between laboratory and in-situ test results, nondestructive evaluations, intelligent compaction data, and field performance.

o Evaluate novel sensor technologies to better understand behavior of road bases, subbases, and subgrades under pavement loading.

o Assess inverted pavement designs for low- and high-volume roadways and compare with traditional pavement designs.

• Geotechnical Research Assistance on Geotechnical Asset and Performance Management o Evaluate long-term performance of geotechnical structures and materials.

o Develop deterioration models and performance metrics for geotechnical features such as bridge approaches, mechanically stabilized earth walls, driven piles, drilled shafts, and earth retaining structures.

o Develop data schema for structured geotechnical databases.

• Geotechnical Laboratory Maintenance, Operations, and Communications o Clean, maintain, and organize all geotechnical facilities and testing equipment within the two, connected indoor laboratories, the geotechnical shed, the two outdoor sand pits, and the outdoor strong floor.

o Conduct basic and specialty geotechnical materials testing experiments.

Geotechnical materials may include soils, aggregates, geosynthetics, steel, concrete.

o Prepare computer-aided designs and setup, conduct, and breakdown small-, large- , and/or full-scale, instrumented experiments or load tests in any of the indoor and outdoor geotechnical laboratory facilities as needed.

o Perform field experimentation and numerical modeling in support of geotechnical research in the laboratory.

o Develop and maintain an inventory of laboratory assets. Equipment should be maintained, calibrated, or brought into good working order such that it is available for use as FHWA needs arise.

o Survey and take sensor readings for the three large- and full-scale Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil (GRS) structures around Turner-Fairbank on a routine, seasonal basis. Remotely collect data for two in-service GRS bridges.

o Collect data, ensure data quality, and structure the data in an approved, readable format suitable for standardized data storage, transfer, and management.

o Write publication-ready research reports, journal articles, conference proceedings, and other publications in coordination with FHWA staff. Prepare presentations and other documentation of research findings in coordination with FHWA staff.

Present findings at relevant venues. Ensure all deliverables meet both the technical requirements as well as the broader corporate needs of the agency.

J. Sterling Jones Hydraulics Laboratory

• Hydrology and Extreme Events o Investigate the impacts of extreme weather on stream stability.

o Study the integration of distributed rainfall-runoff modeling.

o Incorporate future changes in precipitation patterns into the highway design process.

o Research Hydrologic Forcing Functions.

o Research the sensitivity of riverine and coastal infrastructure to climate and extreme events.

• Highway Drainage o Research and develop models and information concerning the behavior of urban, roadside, barriers, and bridge deck drainage systems.

o Develop Computational Fluid Dynamics models to rapidly assess highway drainage issues such as curb-opening inlets, hydroplaning and develop new design guide recommendations.

• Culvert Hydraulics o Research Hydraulically Large Culvert Analysis.

o Implement 2-dimensional Hydraulically Modeling for Complex Culverts.

o Improve Culvert Hydraulics Software.

o Improve the Aquatic Organism Passage Implementation Guide.

o Conduct Stream Simulation Research:

- Light Detection and Ranging Survey and Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling of Aquatic Organism Passage versus. Streambed

- Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling Bankfull and Bedforms for Aquatic Organism Passage

- Modeling Effects of Constructed Elements for Aquatic Organism Passage.

• Bridge Hydraulics o Develop Computational Fluid Dynamics models to support and to improve 2-dimensional Hydraulic modeling for analysis and design of bridge crossings.

o Research blocked obstruction drag coefficients.

o Research bridge low chord Manning’s numbers.

o Research blocked obstructions shear amplifications.

• Scour, Stream Stability, and Countermeasures o Develop the next generation of bridge scour design based on hydraulic loading and soil resistance (NextScour).

o Conduct bridge scour reliability research: Develop probabilistic scour design methods o Maintain and improve scour design methodologies in Hydraulic Engineering

Circular-18 “Evaluating Scour at Bridges.”

o Maintain and improve scour countermeasure design methodologies in Hydraulic

Engineering Circular -23 “Bridge Scour and Stream Instability Countermeasures Experience, Selection, and Design Guidance Third Edition, Volume 1 and Volume 2.”

• Coastal Highways o Research the impacts of extreme events.

o Research coastal compound flooding (coastal riverine coupled modeling).

o Develop Computational Fluid Dynamics models to develop new design guidelines for scour/erosion protection for coastal highways.

• Multi-Hazard Mitigation Research for Combined Hazards from Floods, Seismic, and Wind Events o Develop Computational Fluid Dynamics / Computational Structural Mechanics models to explore and demonstrate the combined hazards from flood, seismic, and wind events.

Nondestructive Evaluation Laboratory

• Laboratory Operations and Field Testing o Perform laboratory studies to evaluate NDE technologies for bridges, pavements, and tunnels for existing infrastructure and new construction.

o Test and evaluate NDE technologies at field sites throughout the United States.

o Maintain the laboratory, test equipment, and its tools.

o Perform equipment calibration, maintenance, and repair.

• Develop NDE Technologies o Develop new and innovative NDE technologies.

o Develop and improve NDE technologies, including, existing system hardware and software, design of new system components and software, and design and fabrication of field deployable equipment.

• Technical Assistance o Provide technical assistance to internal (other FHWA Programs and Laboratories) and external (State DOTs and other modes of DOT) stakeholders.

• Technology Transfer, Implementation, and Support o Prepare technical papers, briefs, technical summaries, reports, and other documents.

o Prepare and present technical presentations related to assigned projects at local, national, or international meetings and conferences.

o Maintain the Center’s website.

o Provide facility tours, training, and demonstrations of equipment.

Structures Laboratory

• Technical Assistance for Structural Concrete Research o Advance the state-of-the-art in the use of non-portland cement based concretes for structural applications, including executing research on the material-scale and structural-scale performance of concretes within this class.

o Advance the state-of-the-art in the use of ultra-high performance concrete, including executing research on the material-scale and structural-scale performance of concretes within, and similar to, this class.

o Characterize concrete materials and structural elements.

o Prepare reports, presentations, and other documentation of research findings in coordination with FHWA staff, ensuring that the deliverables meet both the technical requirements as well as the broader corporate needs of the agency.

• Technical Assistance for Structural Steel Research o Advance the state-of-the-art in structural steel joining technologies (e.g. executing research on the mechanical and structural performance of weld and bolt joining processes).

o Characterize steel materials (e.g. determine mechanical and chemical properties, or conduct metallography and fractography) o Advance the state-of-the-art of accelerated bridge construction for steel superstructures.

o Prepare reports, presentations, and other documentation of research findings in coordination with FHWA staff, ensuring that the deliverables meet both the technical requirements as well as the broader corporate needs of the agency.

• Technical Assistance for Construction Research o Advance the state-of-the-practice in the use of construction automation technologies.

o Advance the state-of-the-practice in the use of asset identification, assessment, and management tools during planning and construction phases of infrastructure projects.

o Prepare reports, presentations, and other documentation of research findings in coordination with FHWA staff, ensuring that the deliverables meet both the technical requirements as well as the broader corporate needs of the agency.

• Technical Assistance for FHWA Assessments of Structural Performance Issues o Execute analytical and physical testing to support inquiries into the performance of structural systems.

o Prepare reports, presentations, and other documentation of research findings in coordination with FHWA staff, ensuring that the deliverables meet both the technical requirements as well as the broader corporate needs of the agency.

• Maintenance of Laboratory Test Equipment o Maintain the testing equipment and test specimens associated with the FHWA

Structural Testing Laboratories including the large structural testing laboratory in the Turner Building, the smaller structural and materials testing laboratories in the Annex and Fairbank Buildings, and the outdoor structural engineering testing and storage facilities to the north and northwest of the Turner Building. Equipment should be maintained or brought into good working order such that it is available for use as FHWA needs arise.

SECTION 5. ANTICIPATED MAGNITUDE

The FHWA tentatively anticipates that a Technical Support Services Contract for Infrastructure Laboratories effort may be a small business set-aside with a period of performance of up to five years with an estimated total value of $53M. The type(s) of contract(s) is yet to be determined.

Potential Staffing Level

Infrastructure Laboratory Staffing Level (includes on-site and off-site) Geotechnical Laboratory 4-6 Hydraulics Laboratory 10-15 Non-Destructive Evaluation Laboratory 4-6 Structures Laboratory 10-15

SECTION 6. REQUESTED CONTENT IN RESPONSE TO THIS SSN

Interested firms responding to this SSN must provide a capability statement demonstrating their capability and capacity in supporting efforts that have similar magnitude of size, scope, and complexity. All small business firms interested in this opportunity are encouraged to submit a response to this SSN. However, FHWA will review capability statements from all business sizes.

Interested firms are requested to submit a capability statement that addresses their ability to deliver the services described in Section 4, above. Interested firms may at their own discretion submit comments on the various technical assistance requirements described in this SSN. In doing so, interested firms may identify any gaps or suggest innovative approaches to delivering technical assistance not covered in the requirements herein. Of interest are potential program efficiencies obtainable by sharing of technical and program management resources between laboratories.

Instructions

Responses shall not exceed 15 pages in length double-spaced with font size twelve or larger.

Email attachment should be submitted in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf). Do not submit marketing materials, slide presentations, or technical papers. Electronic files must be less than 5MB with a page size of 8.5x11”. The email subject line must include, “Sources Sought Notice: Technical Support Services for Infrastructure Laboratories.”

Responses shall clearly identify:

1. Name, Address, Point of Contact.

2. Size Standard under NAICS code 541715.

3. Identify all applicable classifications for your organization, such as:

a. Small Business

b. Woman-owned business

c. 8(a) business

d. Large business

e. Small disadvantaged business

f. HUBZone business

g. SDVOB business

h. Non-profit.

4. Description of technical capabilities and relevant experience to perform the work described above by laboratory/discipline.

5. Demonstration of understanding, or experience with program management to manage a multidisciplinary team across diverse laboratories.

6. Description of possible potential staffing by Laboratory/discipline.

7. Demonstration of understanding, and/or provide examples of recent, prior experience with providing staffing for infrastructure research and development laboratories, preferably in the Federal sector. For Federal sector experience please provide contract number and contact information.

8. Company’s ability to begin performance upon contract award.

FHWA anticipates that this work will require the efforts of an interdisciplinary research team that possesses considerable expertise in technical disciplines (in the fields of geotechnical engineering, hydraulics, non-destructive evaluation, structural engineering, and related disciplines) for successful completion of the research work and achievement of the research objectives.

PLEASE NO PHONE CALLS OR EMAILS REGARDING THIS NOTICE

Thank you for participating in US DOT’s market research.

Geotechnical Laboratory Maintenance, Operations, and Communications