World conference on structural control and monitoring

The world conference on structural control and monitoring will be held in Tokyo for the first time in 12 years. The second WCSC, which was held in Kyoto and Tokyo in 1998, is still remembered by many scientists and engineers as the milestone which motivated a lot of people to create a brave new world with this technology. The conference common interest was focused on active vibration control, passive energy dissipation devices, and sensor technologies at that time. Later on, structural health monitoring became the major application field where a wide variety of elemental technologies assembled and crystallized as a new engineering category. In the year 2010, Japan will host the conference again to revitalize the power of science and technology to open the second chapter in this field of engineering.

Details about this conference can be found at http://www.wcscm5.com/.

Abstracts are due Jan. 31, 2010

The Mega-Structure Diagnostic and Prognostic System developed by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has won the Special Prize and Gold Medal for its application in the Guangzhou New TV Tower at the 37th International Exhibition of Inventions, New Techniques and Products in Geneva in early April. This is yet another international recognition of PolyU's outstanding research achievements.

Being the landmark of the city, the Guangzhou New TV Tower will become the highest TV tower in the world with a total height of 610m, comprising a main tower of 454m and a 156m-high antenna. Designed with functions for sightseeing, TV transmission and cultural entertainment, the Tower comprises a Ferries wheel, observatory decks, ceremony hall, 4D cinemas, revolving restaurants, open-air skywalk, etc. To ensure safety during construction and operational performance during typhoons and earthquakes, an advanced monitoring system has been implemented for the first time in the supertall structure of the Tower by experts of the PolyU Department of Civil and Structural Engineering.

"The Mega-Structure Diagnostic and Prognostic System, making use of the fusion of technologies from different disciplines, such as sensing, communication, information technology, signal processing, data management, system identification, etc., provides structural monitoring, control, maintenance and management for mega-structures and performs a complete health monitoring throughout its life-cycle. The System does not only allow early identification of structural deterioration and damage for avoiding catastrophic structural failure, it also enables the assessment of structural safety immediately after unexpected disasters. The monitoring system can be applied to mega-structures like high-rise buildings and long-span bridges," said Dr. Yi-qing Ni, Principal Investigator of the monitoring system and Associate Professor of PolyU Department of Civil and Structural Engineering.

[PRLog]

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