Call for papers: NDE/NDT for Highways and Bridges

NDE/NDT for Highways and Bridges: Structural Materials Technology (SMT) 2010

16–20 August 2010, New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott, New York, NY, USA

The conference promotes the exchange of information among national and international researchers, practitioners and infrastructure stakeholders on the application of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and nondestructive testing (NDT) technologies for condition assessment of highway infrastructure. Contributions focused on field applications, case studies, technology implementation, applied research, and practical experience are invited to submit abstracts. Through technical presentations and exhibits, infrastructure stakeholders, transportation officials, researchers, consultants, and contractors will be exposed to the state-of-the-practice in NDE methods. In addition, participants will have opportunities to discuss urgent problems faced by civil infrastructure stakeholders and the potential solutions utilizing available and emerging NDE technologies.

Topics of interest for the conference include NDE technologies for bridge superstructures, substructure and decks, pavement NDE and structural health monitoring. Quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) practices, bridge inspection methods and the integration of inspection findings in bridge evaluation and management programs are also of interest.

Suggested Topics Include:

• Condition assessments of existing highway infrastructure

• Implementation of NDE technologies

• Quality control (QC) and forensic investigation of in-service structures

• Quality assurance (QA) during construction

• Inspections at the fabrication yards

• Bridge inspection challenges faced by State DOT’s

• Structural health monitoring (SHM) and load rating

• Foundation integrity and unknown depth

• Pavement integrity evaluations

• Bridge cable inspection

• Underwater inspection technologies

• Scour evaluation

• Long-term bridge monitoring

• Innovative sensors for civil infrastructure

• Embeddable sensors

• Tunnel and culvert inspection

• Inspection and evaluation of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) material and FRP structures

• Inspection of light poles and sign supports

• Quantification of bridge deterioration

• Training and certification of inspection personnel

Deadlines

Abstracts submission: 1 February 2010

Acceptance notification: 15 March 2010

Final paper submission: 14 May 2010

More information: http://www.asnt.org/events/conferences/smt10/smt10.htm

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

Course on Structural Health Monitoring

An Advanced Course on Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) that will take place at the University of Patras, Greece, on April 6-9, 2009. Seven distinguished scientists from around Europe will lecture on the background and basics of SHM, how SHM works, and how SHM can be applied. Participants will also get the opportunity to see SHM working in laboratory sessions in which you can become active if you wish.

Lecturers include:

• Christian Boller, PhD, Professor University of Saarland, Germany
  
• Spilios Fassois, PhD, Professor University of Patras, Greece
  
• Claus-Peter Fritzen, PhD, Professor University of Siegen, Germany
  
• Alfredo Guemes, PhD, Professor Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain
  
• Malcolm McGugan, PhD, Principal Investigator RISOE National Laboratory, Denmark
  
• Wieslaw Ostachowicz, PhD, Professor at Institute of Fluid Flow and Machinery, Poland
  
• Afzal Suleman, PhD, Professor IDMEC-ISΤ, Portugal
  

The course is designed for engineers, managers, researchers, academics and students who wish to learn or deepen their knowledge and understanding of SHM. Applications from different engineering fields, such as aeronautical, civil, mechanical, and wind energy engineering, will be presented. 

For further information contact Professor Spilios D. Fassois at fassois@mech.upatras.gr 

IABMAS 2010

The IABMAS (International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety ) conference will return in 2010 in Philadelphia.

The IABMAS2010 Conference will be held in downtown Philadelphia at the Loews Hotel from July 11-15, 2010. 

Additional information is available at the website: iabmas.atlss.lehigh.edu .

The conference is organized by Richard Sause and Dan M. Frangopol from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA.

This conference follows the privious succesfull ones in Barcellona, Kyoto, Porto and Seoul.

Imporant Dates: 

Authors are kindly requested to submit 300-word abstracts to the Conference Secretariat by May 31, 2009, together with the preliminary registration form. Abstracts should be submitted to IABMAS2010 webpage: www.iabmas2010.org , in electronic form. Authors will be notified regarding the acceptance of their abstracts no later than September 18, 2009. The final abstracts and full eight-page papers are due on November 30, 2009.

SHMII-4 Website

The SHMII-4 conference website is now available at shmii.empa.ch.

You will find information about the conference, venue, social program and registration.

SHMII-4 Conference 2009 is an official conference of the International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructures (ISHMII) and is being organised by the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials, Testing and Research (Empa).

A pre-conference tour will be organized in Ticino, including a visit to SMARTEC, the Ricciolo bridge, the Gandria Church and the AlpTransit tunnel site. 

SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring

I am currently at the
SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring conference in San Diego.

Several interesting trends emerged in this edition:

• The seems to be a growing interest in aerospace applications, SHM and smart structures for active control.


• The civil engineering and structural monitoring parts are attracting less presentations and little new work. Probably more specific conferences such as SHMII and IABMAS are becoming more relevant in this field.


• A lot of papers as usual on Fiber Optic sensing and a growing number on wireless sensing. This technology is maturing and appears now adapted for field use, but mostly limited to short- and medium-term applications.


• Besides the usual bridges, other structures were also monitored, including aircraft, oil platforms and buildings.

2nd Asia-Pacific Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring

Conference Announcement:

Organiser: Materials Australia
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Date: December 02-04, 2008

This is the second in a series of biennial Asia-Pacific workshops that focuses on the field of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). This is a particularly promising area that has attracted significant attention in recent years for its wide potential of applications, particularly for civil infrastructures, and maritime and aircraft structures. The purpose of the workshop is to allow a forum where key and emerging technical issues that are critical and unique in structural health monitoring can be discussed and identified, as well as allow current state-of-the-art technologies and R&D activities in the field to be presented. The workshop is also intended to promote exchanges and cross-fertilisation among many disciplines.

The workshop shall focus on, but is not limited to, the following topics:

- Sensor and Actuator Development
- Reliability of Structural Health Monitoring Methodologies
- Bio-inspired sensors
- Damage Identification and Properties/ Integrity Characterisation and Assessment: Intelligent Processing of Materials and Structures
- System Integration
- Applications (particularly in the field of aircraft, automotive, rail and maritime structures, civil and petroleum infrastructure, textiles etc)
- Homeland Security

Website: http://www.materialsaustralia.com.au/SHM2008/

ISBSE conference on bridge widening

Submissions are invited on the subject of widening of bridges: project-related articles, recent research of state-of-the-art or paper on a specific topic. Deadline for submission is January 10, 2008. Please use the abstract submission form available on the IABSE website:
http://www.iabse.org/journalsei/asanauthor/index.php
Submit to: mailto:bose@iabse.org

IN SITU MONITORING OF MONUMENTAL SURFACES

CNR - ICVBC, Florence, Italy organizes an International Workshop on
IN SITU MONITORING OF MONUMENTAL SURFACES – SMW08

t will be held in Florence on 27-29 October 2008

The aim of the Workshop is to illustrate the ultimate state of the art of portable diagnostic technologies for monitoring cultural heritage and their general and specific uses. The Conference will provide a forum for scientists, technicians and experts in the field scheduled maintenance, in conjunction with representatives of SMEs producing and/or trading diagnostic portable devices.As the number of oral speakers is limited we highly suggest you to pre-register yourself and submit, as soon as possible, the Abstract Form to the Scientific Secretariat. Remember that deadline for the submission of the abstract is February 15th 2008.

Secretariat:
In situ Monitoring of Monumental Surfaces - SMW08
Istituto per la Conservazione e la Valorizzazione dei Beni Culturali - CNR
Via Madonna del Piano, 10
50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
Phone: +39 055 5225484
www.surfacemonitor.eu

Geotechnical Instrumentation for Field Measurements

A short course on Geotechnical Instrumentation for Field Measurements will be held in Delft (Netherlands) on 15-17 January 2008.

Topics include:

• overview of state-of-the-art and innovative instruments


• up-to-date methods for automatic acquisition of data


• aspect of tunnel and dam monitoring


• high requirements for instrumentation offshore


• systematic planning of risk-driven monitoring programs


• geotechnical baseline reporting


• workshop on planning a monitoring program.

Steve Chase Opening Lecture

In the opening session of the SHMII conference in Vancouver, Dr. Steve Chase, recently retired from Federal Highway Administration in USA (FHWA) has delivered a eye-opening talk entitled "Why is Intelligent Infrastructure Needed?".
Dr. Chase explained that there are currently 597'000 highway bridges in the US and that about 50'000 of them are currently classified as Load deficient, meaning that they do not correspond to the load that should be allowed on them. All of these "deficient" bridges were declared so on the base of visual inspection and mathematical analysis and only a handful (less than 10) have actually been load rated through a load test.
With the current inspection practice, vulnerability and reliability are not addresses and most damage and deterioration processes cannot be addressed by visual inspection alone. No information on the long-term performance of foundations is collected, since these cannot usually be inspected.
To improve bridge management and safety, more information is therefore needed. Technology is available to complement the current inspection practices, but not widely used since it is unproven and not mandatory.
Intelligent Infrastructures would enhance the ability of detecting unsafe conditions and to quantify the bridge performance in the long term.

To address these issues, FHWA has launched the "Long Term Bridge Performance Program", managed by Hamid Ghasemi. The program is currently evaluating proposals to select the prime contractor.

SHMII Conference Venues

In the recent ISHMII meeting it was decided that the following congresses will be organized in the following venues:

July 2009: Zurich, ETHZ, organized by Prof. Maier at EMPA
2011: Mexico, dates and location to be confirmed
2013: A call for proposal has been opened and a decision will be taken in 2009 in Zurich. Proposed venues include Washington (USA) and Hong-Kong.

IABSE Annual Meeting 2008

The IABSE congress on

"Creating and Renewing Urban Structures Tall Buildings, Bridges and Infrastructure"

will be held in Chicago, USA, on September 17-19, 2008.

The Congress covers the following topics:

1. Design Challenges

Adaptive reuse and sustainability of structures
Affordable urban environments and infrastructure
New techniques for analysis, design and construction
Progressive failure, robustness, security, seismic retrofitting, and serviceability

2. Learning from Experience

Techniques for evaluating structures
Strengthening and upgrading
Forensics/failures and lessons learned
Criteria for assessment and risk management

3. Creative Design and Construction Processes

Role of building information modeling and I.C.T in design and construction
New materials and technologies for design and construction
Engineering ethics
Means and methods (ways and means) of construction

4. Engineering as a Global Profession

Codes and standards
Economic effect on design and construction
Post-disaster response
Educational approaches in a dynamic world

Important Dates

30 November 2007: Deadline for receipt of abstracts
31 December 2007: Notification of acceptance of papers
29 February 2008: Deadline for receipt of papers
31 March 2008: Mailing of Final Invitation
31 May 2008: Notification of acceptance of papers
1 July 2008: Close of early registration and notification of type of presentation
14-16 September 2008: IABSE Annual Meetings
17-19 September 2008: IABSE Congress

4th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring

The 4th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring will be held on 2-4 July 2008 in Cracow.
This is the fourth in a series of bi-annual European Workshops, following Cachan (France 2002), Munich (Germany, 2004) and Granada (Spain, 2006).
The conference will cover activities related to:

• damage detection and evaluation in engineering structures,
• signal processing,
• sensor development,
• analytical techniques and experimental case studies.

Among the various fields of research oriented towards the development of smart materials and structures, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is particularly promising. SHM has attracted significant attention in recent years for its wide potential of applications, especially for civil infrastructures, aircraft and aerospace vehicles.

The extended abstract submission deadline is November 16, 2007.

Here is the official conference website

14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (14WCEE)

The 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (14WCEE) will be held in Beijing, China on October 12-17th 2008 and wil serve as an international forum at which specialists, government officials and NGO representatives in earthquake engineering and relevant fields may exchange the latest research results and technologies. The Conference strives to promote innovation, practice and safety in reducing the impact of earthquakes on our society and natural environment.

Important dates:
Deadline forAbstract Submission: October 31, 2007
Acceptance Notification: January 1, 2008
Paper Submission: May 1, 2008
Early Registration: May 1, 2008

International Pipeline Conference (IPC) 2008

The International Pipeline Conference (IPC) 2008 will be held September 29 – October 3, 2008 at The Hyatt Regency Hotel & The TELUS Convention Centre, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The Call for Papers is open with details available on the IPC 2008 Web site at: www.InternationalPipelineConference.com. Abstracts can now be submitted online at: https://www.asmeconferences.org/IPC08/Author/NewAbstract.cfm.

Remember to submit your abstracts on or before December 3, 2007.

SHMII-3 Conference in Vancouver

The upcoming The 3rd International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (SHMII-3) conference will be one of the most important events for SHM this year. It will be held on
November 13-16, 2007 at the Fairmont Waterfront HotelVancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Please visit the conference website for more information: http://www.isiscanada.com/shmii-3/index.htm

The conference will have sessions on these topics:

• Smart wireless or other advanced sensors
• Field applications
• Data acquisition, processing and management
• SHM of Heritage Structures
• Damage identification and localization
• Model updating, safety evaluation and reliability forecast
• Damage control, repair and strengthening
• Life-cycle performance-based design
• Smart materials and structures
• Global positioning system (GPS) and related systems for wind and earthquake hazard mitigation of civil infrastructure
• Remote monitoring systems
• Integrated systems and implementations of SHM
• Design guidelines and codes of SHM
• Standardization of SHM systems
• Non-destructive evaluation/testing

Special Sessions will be held on:

• Monitoring of Marine and Harbour Structures
• Structural Health Monitoring and Bridge Security
• Structural Identification of Constructed Systems
• Inverse Problems in Bridge Management
• SHM of GEO-Tech Problems
• Structural Analysis and Reliability Assessment
• Wireless Sensing
• Long Term Bridge Performance Program

Short Courses will be offered on:

• Implementing Structural Monitoring in Bridge Management and Maintenance Practices (Tuesday, Nov. 13th)
• Civil Engineering Education Reform (Friday, November 16th)

I will be presenting papers in the session in bold. I plan to blog from the conference to give updates on the most interesting papers and presentaitons.

There will also be an exhibit with the following companies exhibiting:

ISIS Canada Research Network
Micron Optics
SMARTEC SA / Roctest (I will be at this booth)
FiberSensing
OZ Optics
Vienna Consulting Engineers
MacDonnell Group
Physical Acoustics Corporation
Wardrop Engineering

I will report about new products announcements during the conference.

See you there!