ITR: Collaborative Research: An Integrated Framework for Health Monitoring of Highway Bridges and Civil Infrastructure

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Novel health monitoring strategies for Highway Bridges and Constructed Facilities are of primary significance to the vitality of our economy. Using latest enabling technologies, the objectives of health monitoring are to detect and assess the level of damage to the civil infrastructure due to severe loading events (caused by natural loads or man-made events) and/or progressive environmental deterioration. Damage identification is performed based on changes in salient response features of the structure, as measured by deployed sensor arrays. Due to the challenging nature of the technical problems associated with this topic, substantial research efforts during the past thirty years were undertaken by many researchers in many areas related to this broad interdisciplinary topic. The proposed research will build on these developments, and address a number of fundamental and basic research challenges towards a next-generation, versatile, efficient, and practical health monitoring strategy. In such a strategy, data from thousands of sensors will be analyzed with long-term and real-time assessment decisionmaking implications. A flexible and scalable software architecture/framework will be developed to integrate real-time heterogeneous sensor data, database and archiving systems, computer vision, data analysis and interpretation, numerical simulation of complex structural systems, visualization, probabilistic risk analysis, and rational statistical decision making procedures. This development will be undertaken in a concerted and focused comprehensive approach by an inter-disciplinary team of Computer Scientists (CS) and Structural Engineers (SE). It is believed that this inter-disciplinary approach will synergize the resolution of basic technical challenges and allow development of the framework for future applications in this field. The new framework will also speed up the discovery of new knowledge related to the progressive or sudden deterioration of civil infrastructure systems and the corresponding damage mechanisms. The planned research activities will not only culminate in the deployment of a robust, field-implementable monitoring system, but it will also advance the research frontiers in several active, cutting-edge research areas involving grid storage (curated databases, filesystems, database systems), knowledge-based data integration and advanced query processing, information extraction (data mining, modeling, analysis and visualization), knowledge extraction (reliability/risk analysis, structural health assessment, physics-based model development), and decision support systems (e.g., emergency response, preventive maintenance, rehabilitation). The entire project will be developed around actual Bridge Testbeds in cooperation with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and Industry Partners. These Testbeds will be densely instrumented and continuously monitored, and the recorded response databases will be made available for maximum possible use by interested researchers and engineers worldwide. The actual recorded data streams from both laboratory models and bridge testbeds will be a major component for all phases of this research effort. An Internet Portal will integrate all elements and act as a Gateway for the Project. The proposed 5 year project duration will allow the opportunity for resolving key basic research issues of relevance to Structural Health Monitoring, and collaboration between CS and SE is simply a necessity. State-of-the-art data acquisition, transmission, and management, involvement of computer vision, refinement of nonlinear system identification and modeling, and practical implementation constitute the basic research framework. Applications include long-term condition assessment and emergency response after natural or man-made disasters and acts of terrorism for all types of large constructed facilities. From a broader perspective, the proposed effort will be a major boost in defining and shaping additional long-term interaction and collaboration opportunities between CS and SE, with wide national and international implications, as well as strongly benefiting from leveraging resources and ongoing monitoring activities.