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 

NIST Award for sensor development

Optiphase, Redfern and the university of Illinois (with prof. F. ansari) announced that they has been selected to participate in a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Technology Innovation Program (TIP) to develop advanced sensing technologies that enable timely and detailed monitoring and inspection of the structural health of bridges, roadways, and water systems that comprise a significant portion of the nation's public infrastructure.

The project involves the development of an innovative fiber optic monitoring system for large public structures, such as bridges, waterways, or pipelines that substitutes a single optical fiber sensing cable for hundreds of discrete, local strain or fracture sensors. Optiphase's blueprint calls for the use of distributed sensors (the entire fiber length is the sensor) and low-cost standardized fiber optic assemblies. The approach leverages naturally occurring scattering light phenomenon in fiber optic cable, coupled with the highest possible resolution method available (interferometric), to yield the breakthrough required—concurrent dynamic and static, high-resolution measurements of large structures. This system could also scale to form an interstate civil structure grid, providing remote monitoring and highly precise real-time data analysis of structural conditions.

The system seeks to break the existing spatial and strain resolution barriers of today's sensors and offers both static and dynamic measurements in a cost-effective manner for large public works structures. This will enable agencies to instrument large structures for real-time, high-resolution monitoring of the public works infrastructure for detection of cracks, large deformations, dynamic overloads, and other critical structural conditions.

Total funding of $4 million for the project is provided to the partners from NIST via joint venture Distributed Sensor Technologies Inc over a period of 3 years.

[Optiphase press release]

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.

Course on Geotechnical Instrumentation for Field Measurements

A course on Geotechnical Instrumentation for Field Measurements will be held on March 15-17, 2009 at the Doubletree Hotel in Cocoa Beach, FL.

The course is organized by John Dunnicliff and the University of Florida. I will be one of the trainers. More information can be found here

This is a course for practitioners, taught by practitioners with wide field experience. The emphasis is on why and how. The topic is instrumentation for monitoring performance during construction and operation rather than instrumentation to determine in situ parameters.

This continuing education course will include presentations by users of instrumentation from USA, England, Canada, France, and Switzerland.  There will also be technical presentations and instrument displays by major manufacturers of geotechnical instrumentation from USA, Canada, and England.  Some earlier courses have emphasized the users' views: this course will be an international cooperative effort between manufacturers and users.

Who should attend?

Engineers, geologists, or technicians who are involved with performance monitoring of geotechnical features during construction and operating phases

Project managers and other decision-makers who are concerned with safety or performance of geotechnical construction and consequential behavior

Geotechnical Instrumentation News Dec 2008

The latest issue of Geotechnical Instrumentation News, Edited by John Dunnicliff ,  is now available online.

The December 2008 Issue contains articles on the following topics:

- Distributed Optical Fibre Strain Measurements in Civil Engineering
- Monitoring by Manual and/or Automated Optical Survey
- Some Views on a Recent Addition to our Instrumentation Tool Box
- Early History of the Geo-Institute Committee on Grouting
- Installing a Gravel Pack or Filter pack for a Monitoring Well

Some of the recent issues of GIN are available here.

NIST Projects on Monitoring and Inspection

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today announced nine awards for new research projects to develop advanced sensing technologies that would enable timely and detailed monitoring and inspection of the structural health of bridges, roadways and water systems that comprise a significant component of the nation’s public infrastructure. The awards are the first to be made under NIST’s new Technology Innovation Program (TIP), which was created to support innovative, high-risk, high-reward research in areas of critical national need where the government has a clear interest because of the magnitude of the problems and their importance to society.

The cost-shared awards announced today initiate up to $88.2 million in new research over the next five years on structure monitoring and inspection technologies, $42.5 million of it potentially funded by TIP.

The nine projects are:

1. Development of SCANSn for Advanced Health Management of Civil Infrastructures, lead Acellent Technologies
   
3. Fiber Sensing System for Civil Infrastructure Health Monitoring, lead Distributed Sensor Technologies
4. Infrastructure Defect Recognition, Visualization and Failure Prediction System Utilizing Ultrawideband Pulse Radar Profilometry, lead ELXSI Corporation 
5. Microwave Thermoelectric Imager for Corrosion Detection and Monitoring in Reinforced Concrete, lead Newport Sensors
6. VOTERS: Versatile Onboard Traffic Embedded Roaming Sensors, lead Northeastern University 
7. Self-Powered Wireless Sensor Network for Structural Bridge Health Prognosis, lead Physical Acoustics Corporation 
8. Next Generation SCADA for Prevention and Mitigation of Water System Infrastructure Disaster, lead University of California at Irvine 
9. Cyber-Enabled Wireless Monitoring Systems for the Protection of Deteriorating National Infrastructure Systems, lead University of Michigan 
10. Development of Rapid, Reliable and Economic Methods for Inspection and Monitoring of Highway Bridges, lead The University of Texas at Austin 

[nist.gov]

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. 

Roctest Announces New Contract for the Nam Ngum 2 Dam

Roctest Ltd, a leading manufacturer of sensors for civil engineering and industrial applications, announced it has been awarded the contract to supply market sensors and high precision measuring instruments for the Nam Ngum 2 dam in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. This, the second dam on the Nam Ngum artificial reservoir, is being constructed with rockfill and a concrete face. Standing nearly 200 meters high, it will contain at least 250 high precision measuring instruments. The project manager selected Roctest due to its unique and fully integrated product offering combining different technologies. A fiber optic system will be installed to detect water infiltration at the joints between the dam wall and the rock faces while traditional vibrating wire technology will be installed within the dam’s structure.

“Our recent success in winning business from existing and new clients is a result of our unique product offering which combines vibrating wire and fiber optics technology and differentiates us from our competitors,” said Francois Cordeau, President and CEO of Roctest.

Roctest Press Release [Roctest]

Weigh-In-Motion system for Stonecutters Bridge

International Road Dynamics Inc said it was awarded a contract by Lucky Engineering Co. Ltd. in Hong Kong to supply and install a Weigh-In-Motion system for Bridge Monitoring/Protection on the Stonecutters Bridge in Hong Kong. 

IRD's total contract value is approximately C$806 thousand. The bridge construction and Weigh-in-Motion installation are to be completed by the end of June 2009. 

SHM Shows Savings Potential in Excess of 30%

LifeSpan Technologies, announces the availability of its second White Paper that describes a simple four step process, allowing repair and replacement bridge projects to be based on risk priorities and precise engineering data.

If Congress were to implement this proposed process, bridge cost savings at the federal and the state level could be in excess of thirty percent. Federally mandated visual inspection techniques have been used on bridges for over 35 years. The Federal Highway Administration acknowledges that the visual process produces results that are subjective, highly variable and not sufficiently reliable for optimal long-term bridge management. Because of the inherent variability, allowing visual inspection assessments to control bridge repair and replacement projects can lead to significant unnecessary expense.

"Our proposed process, calling for the use of proven condition assessment technologies, can easily provide billions of dollars in savings," commented Peter Vanderzee, CEO of LifeSpan Technologies. "In this era of severely limited federal and state funding, we are convinced that every bridge classified as structurally deficient, or that has a sufficiency rating less than fifty (the threshold for replacement), should have a technically appropriate advanced condition assessment solution deployed prior to repair or replacement funding authorization."

Adopting advanced condition assessment technologies is the most effective means for DOTs, railroads, toll roads, counties, cities and other bridge owners to gather the crucial information on structurally deficient bridges to more accurately diagnose deficiencies, define safe operating parameters, and objectively plan/prioritize repair projects. Advanced bridge monitoring systems can help keep the traveling public safe and provide information which can be used to optimize long-term bridge management.

The White Paper can be ordered by emailing whitepaper@lifespantechnologies.com 

[Insurance News Net]