By Coco Liu, Bloomberg News

Suyun Ham can’t take his eyes off a scanner. “Lower the sensors a little bit more,” Ham urges an assistant. Then a barrage of data floods in, filling computer screens for a diagnosis.

But Ham isn’t a medical doctor. Nor is his “patient” a living creature. An engineering professor from the University of Texas at Arlington, he is experimenting with a novel approach in bridge inspection.

Ham’s mobile-scanning system is part of efforts to make US infrastructure more heat-resilient. Unlike floods and tornados that can quickly destroy bridges, extreme heat is a silent killer that harms them over time, experts say. “If temperatures are out of range, bridges can get damaged unexpectedly,” says Ham, who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where summer temperatures ca

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