Vision-Based Vibration Monitoring of Structures and Infrastructures: An Overview of Recent Applications

Contactless structural monitoring has in recent years seen a growing number of applications in civil engineering. Indeed, the elimination of physical installations of sensors is very attractive, especially for structures that might not be easily or safely accessible, yet requiring the experimental evaluation of their conditions, for example following extreme events such as strong earthquakes, explosions, and floods. Among contactless technologies, vision-based monitoring is possibly the solution that has attracted most of the interest of civil engineers, given that the advantages of contactless monitoring can be potentially obtained thorough simple and low-cost consumer-grade instrumentations. The objective of this review article is to provide an introductory discussion of the latest applications of vision-based vibration monitoring of structures and infrastructures through an overview of the results achieved in full-scale field tests, as documented in the published technical literature. In this way, engineers new to vision-based monitoring and stakeholders interested in the possibilities of contactless monitoring in civil engineering could have an outline of up-to-date achievements to support a first evaluation of the feasibility and convenience for future monitoring tasks.

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Vibration Monitoring of Civil Engineering Structures Using Contactless Vision-Based Low-Cost IATS Prototype

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21237952 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (23) ◽

pp. 7952

Author(s):

Rinaldo Paar ◽

Ante Marendić ◽

Ivan Jakopec ◽

Igor Grgac

Keyword(s):

Natural Frequencies ◽

Civil Engineering ◽

Low Cost ◽

Deformation Monitoring ◽

Vibration Monitoring ◽

Monitoring Systems ◽

Load Testing ◽

Engineering Structures ◽

Civil Engineering Structures

The role and importance of geodesists in the planning and building of civil engineering constructions are well known. However, the importance and benefits of collected data during maintenance in exploitation have arisen in the last thirty years due primarily to the development of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) instruments, sensors and systems, which can receive signals from multiple GPS systems. In the last fifteen years, the development of Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) and Image-Assisted Total Stations (IATS) has enabled much wider integration of these types of geodetic instruments with their sensors into monitoring systems for the displacement and deformation monitoring of structures, as well as for regular structure inspections. While GNSS sensors have certain limitations regarding their accuracy, their suitability in monitoring systems, and the need for a clean horizon, IATS do not have these limitations. The latest development of Total Stations (TS) called IATS is a theodolite that consists of a Robotic Total Station (RTS) with integrated image sensors. Today, IATS can be used for structural and geo-monitoring, i.e., for the determination of static and dynamic displacements and deformations, as well as for the determination of civil engineering structures’ natural frequencies. In this way, IATS can provide essential information about the current condition of structures. However, like all instruments and sensors, they have their advantages and disadvantages. IATS’s biggest advantage is their high level of accuracy and precision and the fact that they do not need to be set up on the structure, while their biggest disadvantage is that they are expensive. In this paper, the developed low-cost IATS prototype, which consists of an RTS Leica TPS1201 instrument and GoPro Hero5 camera, is presented. At first, the IATS prototype was tested in the laboratory where simulated dynamic displacements were determined. After the experiment, the IATS prototype was used in the field for the purpose of static and dynamic load testing of the railway bridge Kloštar, after its reconstruction according to HRN ISO NORM U.M1.046—Testing of bridges by load test. In this article, the determination of bridge dynamic displacements and results of the computation of natural frequencies using FFT from the measurement data obtained by means of IATS are presented. During the load testing of the bridge, the frequencies were also determined by accelerometers, and these data were used as a reference for the assessment of IATS accuracy and suitability for dynamic testing. From the conducted measurements, we successfully determined natural bridge frequencies as they match the results gained by accelerometers.

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A Sentinel Node for Event-Driven Structural Monitoring of Road Bridges Using Wireless Sensor Networks

Journal of Sensors ◽

10.1155/2019/8652527 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2019 ◽

pp. 1-16 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Glauco Feltrin ◽

Nemanja Popovic ◽

Michał Wojtera

Keyword(s):

Wireless Sensor Networks ◽

Sensor Networks ◽

Low Cost ◽

Field Tests ◽

Wireless Sensor ◽

Structural Monitoring ◽

Success Rates ◽

Strain Sensing ◽

Displacement Sensors ◽

Event Driven

Event-driven monitoring policies enable to significantly reduce the power consumption of wireless sensor networks by reducing the recording period to those time intervals that provide valuable data. The resulting longer operation lifetime increase discloses fields of application that require long monitoring periods. This paper presents a structural monitoring system that uses specialized sentinel nodes for detecting possibly heavy road vehicles and for alarming monitoring nodes, which are specialized on strain sensing. Heavy vehicles are identified by estimating nearly in real time height and length of vehicles of a traffic flow by processing data recorded from low-cost ultrasonic and magnetic displacement sensors. Field tests demonstrated that while height detection is very reliable, length detection is too imprecise to discriminate with high success rates between trucks and delivery vans.

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PREDICTION OF INFILTRATION ON SMALL SCALE FIELD TESTS PERFORMANCE IN COMPACTED LOESSIC SOIL

International Journal of Geomate ◽

10.21660/2015.17.4153 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Aiassa Martínez Gonzalo

Keyword(s):

Field Tests ◽

Small Scale ◽

Scale Field ◽

Loessic Soil

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Development and characterization of a low-cost vibration monitoring instrument based on MEMS acceleration sensor

2021 Second International Symposium on Instrumentation, Control, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics (ICA-SYMP) ◽

10.1109/ica-symp50206.2021.9358445 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nopporn Suttiwong ◽

Pairoj Rattanangkul

Keyword(s):

Low Cost ◽

Vibration Monitoring ◽

Acceleration Sensor ◽

Monitoring Instrument

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Large scale field tests on geogrid-reinforced granular fill underlain by clay soil

Geotextiles and Geomembranes ◽

10.1016/j.geotexmem.2012.05.007 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 38 ◽

pp. 1-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Ahmet Demir ◽

Mustafa Laman ◽

Abdulazim Yildiz ◽

Murat Ornek

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Clay Soil ◽

Field Tests ◽

Scale Field ◽

Granular Fill ◽

Large Scale Field

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Effect of guy cable constraint on structural damping of open lattice antenna towers

Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering ◽

10.1139/l80-074 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 614-620

Author(s):

J. S. Kennedy ◽

D. J. Wilson ◽

P. F. Adams ◽

M. Perlynn

Keyword(s):

Natural Frequencies ◽

Damping Ratio ◽

Field Tests ◽

Full Scale ◽

Structural Damping ◽

Scale Field ◽

Modes Of Vibration

This paper presents the results of full-scale field tests on two steel guyed latticed towers. The towers were approximately 83 m in height, were guyed at three levels, and were of bolted angle construction. The observed results consist of the natural frequencies of the first two modes of vibration as well as the damping ratio for the first mode. The observed results are compared with analytical predictions and observations made concerning the contributions of structural and cable action to the damping ratio.

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Comparison and verification of four field-based microbiological tests: H2S test, Easygel®, Colilert®, Petrifilm™

Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development ◽

10.2166/washdev.2011.026 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 68-85 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Patty Chuang ◽

Stephanie Trottier ◽

Susan Murcott

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

Developing Countries ◽

Standard Method ◽

Low Cost ◽

Field Tests ◽

Single Test ◽

Total Water ◽

Microbiological Test ◽

Technical Capacity ◽

Larger Sample

The UN defines water supplies as ‘improved’ or ‘unimproved.’ These indicators are easy to measure, but do not reflect water quality, which requires laboratory or field tests. Laboratory and test availability, expense and technical capacity are obstacles for developing countries. This research compares and verifies four low-cost, field-based microbiological tests: the EC-Kit (Colilert® and Petrifilm™ tests), the H2S bacteria test, and Easygel®, against a standard method (Quanti-Tray®). The objectives are to: (1) verify the accuracy of the four field-based tests, (2) study the accuracy of these tests as a function of improved and unimproved sources; (3) recommend a single microbiological test, if appropriate, based on accuracy and cost, and/or (4) recommend a testing combination, if appropriate, based on accuracy and cost. The tests of 500+ total water samples from Capiz Province, Philippines and Cambridge, MA indicate that two-tests systems gave better results than a single test. Both the 100-mL H2S test + Petrifilm™ and the 20-mL H2S test + Easygel® combinations yield promising results, in addition to being inexpensive. None of the field-based tests should be used on their own. We recommend further verification of a larger sample size and scale be undertaken before these testing combinations are recommended for wider use.

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