Filippo Bastianini

Structural Health Monitoring of Bridges Using Wireless Sensor Networks

Aging and degradation of transportation infrastructure pose significant safety concerns, especially in light of increased use of these structures. The economic downturn further exacerbates such concerns, especially for critical structures such as bridges, where replacement is infeasible and maintenance and repair are expensive. The US Federal Highway Administration has classified over 25% of the bridges in the United States as either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, underscoring the importance of structural health monitoring (SHM) to ensure public safety. We give an overview of emerging wireless sensor networks (WSN) for autonomous SHM systems, their application, the power use and sources needed to support autonomy, and the type of communication that allows remote monitoring.

A wireless system for real-time environmental and structural monitoring

Accurate real-time monitoring of structural health can result in significant safety improvements, while providing data that can be used to improve design and construction practices. For bridges, monitoring of water level, tilt, displacement, strain, and vibration can provide snapshots of the state of the structure. Real-time measurement and communication of this information can be invaluable in guiding decisions regarding the safety and remaining fatigue life of a bridge. This paper describes the real-time data acquisition, communication, and alerting capabilities of the Flood Frog, an autonomous wireless system for remote monitoring. Battery power and utilization of the GSM cellular network result in a completely wireless system. Coupled with the low cost of the device, the elimination of cables allows deployment in locations where autonomous monitoring is hindered by cost or infeasibility of installation. The first prototype of the system was deployed in Osage Beach, MO in November 2006.

Cost-Effective Dynamic Structural Health Monitoring with a Compact and Autonomous Wireless Sensor System

Dynamic Structural Health Monitoring (D-SHM) in an attractive holistic approach to Non-Destructive Testing (NdT), based on the premise that damage influences the dynamic behaviour of a structure by altering its stiffness, mass or energy dissipation properties.

Recent enhancements to the SmartBrick structural health monitoring platform

This paper introduces several new developments in the SmartBrick structural health monitoring platform. The system, which has been described in previous papers, provides an extremely low-power, long-term method for remote structural health monitoring. The system is capable of monitoring a diverse range of environmental and structural phenomena, including strain, vibration, tilt, and temperature; and communicating the collected data and any alerts over the GSM cellular infrastructure. The system is completely autonomous and wireless, requiring only its self-contained power and GSM network coverage to operate unattended for five or more years. The emphasis of this paper is on advances made in the third generation of the SmartBrick platform. Highlights include the development of a web interface that facilitates retrieval and visualization of data and remote maintenance and calibration of the system, and additional enhancements made to support dynamic structural monitoring. The paper also includes a survey of recent wireless SHM systems, and a comparison of these solutions with the SmartBrick platform.