• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.139-152
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• 2009

Globally, civil infrastructures are deteriorating at an alarming rate caused by overuse, overloading, aging, damage or failure due to natural or man-made hazards. With such a vast network of deteriorating infrastructure, there is a growing interest in continuous monitoring technologies. In order to provide a true distributed sensor and control system for civil structures, we are developing a Structural Nervous System that mimics key attributes of a human nervous system. This nervous system is made up of building blocks that are designed based on mechanoreceptors as a fundamentally new approach for the development of a structural health monitoring and diagnostic system that utilizes the recently developed piezo-fibers capable of sensing and actuation. In particular, our research has been focused on producing a sensory nervous system for civil structures by using piezo-fibers as sensory receptors, nerve fibers, neuronal pools, and spinocervical tract to the nodal and central processing units. This paper presents up to date results of our research, including the design and analysis of the structural nervous system.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.225-238
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• 2010

We report on the development of a new technology for the fabrication of Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) strain sensors to realize a novel type of crackmeter for health monitoring of ageing civil infrastructures. The fabrication of micromachined silicon MEMS sensors based on a Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technology, designed according to a Double Ended Tuning Fork (DETF) geometry is presented, using a novel process which includes a gap narrowing procedure suitable to fabricate sensors with low motional resistance. In order to employ these sensors for crack monitoring, techniques suited for bonding the MEMS sensors on a steel surface ensuring good strain transfer from steel to silicon and a packaging technique for the bonded sensors are proposed, conceived for realizing a low-power crackmeter for ageing infrastructure monitoring. Moreover, the design of a possible crackmeter geometry suited for detection of crack contraction and expansion with a resolution of $10{\mu}m$ and very low power consumption requirements (potentially suitable for wireless operation) is presented. In these sensors, the small crackmeter range for the first field use is related to long-term observation on existing cracks in underground tunnel test sections.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.731-748
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• 2010

Impact detection and health monitoring are very important tasks for civil infrastructures, such as bridges. Piezoceramic based transducers are widely researched for these tasks due to the piezoceramic material's inherent advantages of dual sensing and actuation ability, which enables the active sensing method for structural health monitoring with a network of piezoceramic transducers. Wireless sensor networks, which are easy for deployment, have great potential in health monitoring systems for large civil infrastructures to identify early-age damages. However, most commercial wireless sensor networks are general purpose and may not be optimized for a network of piezoceramic based transducers. Wireless networks of piezoceramic transducers for active sensing have special requirements, such as relatively high sampling rate (at a few-thousand Hz), incorporation of an amplifier for the piezoceramic element for actuation, and low energy consumption for actuation. In this paper, a wireless network is specially designed for piezoceramic transducers to implement impact detection and active sensing for structural health monitoring. A power efficient embedded system is designed to form the wireless sensor network that is capable of high sampling rate. A 32 bit RISC wireless microcontroller is chosen as the main processor. Detailed design of the hardware system and software system of the wireless sensor network is presented in this paper. To verify the functionality of the wireless sensor network, it is deployed on a two-story concrete frame with embedded piezoceramic transducers, and the active sensing property of piezoceramic material is used to detect the damage in the structure. Experimental results show that the wireless sensor network can effectively implement active sensing and impact detection with high sampling rate while maintaining low power consumption by performing offline data processing and minimizing wireless communication.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.149-166
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• 2020

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on a vibration-based damage identification framework for a steel girder type and a truss bridge based on acceleration responses to operational loading. The method relies on sensor clustering-based time-series analysis of the operational acceleration response of the bridge to the passage of a moving vehicle. The results are presented in terms of Damage Features from each sensor, which are obtained by comparing the actual acceleration response from the sensors to the predicted response from the time-series model. The damage in the bridge is detected by observing the change in damage features of the bridge as structural changes occur in the bridge. The relative severity of the damage can also be quantitatively assessed by observing the magnitude of the changes in the damage features. The experimental results show the potential usefulness of the proposed method for future applications on condition assessment of real-life bridge infrastructures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2014

Knee Braced Frame (KBF) is a special form of ductile eccentrically braced frame having a diagonal brace connected to a knee element, as a hysteretic damper, instead of beam-column joint. This paper first presents an experimental investigation on cyclic performance of two knee braced single span one-story frame specimens. The general test arrangement, specimen details, and most relevant results (failure modes and hysteretic curves) are explained. Some indexes to assess the seismic performance of KBFs, including ductility; response reduction factor and energy dissipation capabilities are also subsequently discussed. Experimental results indicate that the maximum equivalent damping ratios achieved by test frames are 21.8 and 23% for the specimens, prior to failure. Finally, a simplified analytical model is derived to predict the bilinear behavior of the KBFs. Acceptable conformity between analytical and experimental results proves the accuracy of the proposed model.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2017

Seismic performance of hybrid steel frames defined as mixture of rigid and semi-rigid connections is investigated in this paper. Three frames with 10, 15 and 20 stories are designed with fully rigid connections and then with 4 patterns for semi-rigid connection placement, some of beam to column rigid connections would turn to semi-rigid. Each semi-rigid connection is considered with 4 different moment capacities and all rigid and semi-rigid frames consisting of 51 models are subjected to 5 selected earthquake records for nonlinear analysis. Maximum story drifts, roof acceleration and base shear are extracted for those 5 earthquake records and average values are obtained for each case. Based on numerical results for the proposed hybrid frames, story drifts remain in allowable range and the reductions in the maximum roof acceleration of 22, 29 and 25% and maximum base shear of 33, 31 and 54% occur in those 10, 15 and 20-story frames, respectively.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.5
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• pp.587-594
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• 2022

Behavior of concrete elements under the effect of high-speed projectiles has gain increasing interest recently. It's necessary to understand how far the concrete can absorb the effect of bullets in order to save the occupants when design security and military infrastructures. This study presents a total of 18 concrete slabs casted and tested under reinforcement ratios, 0%, 0.35% and 0.7%. Parameters interested were slab thickness, (50 mm, 100 mm, and 150 mm) and type of weapon. All specimens tested to investigate their response under the effect of attacking by two common types of weapon. In general, it was found that projectile penetration was controlled by their thickness regardless the steel reinforcement ratio. However, the steel reinforcement controls the damage.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.671-672
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• 2015

Due to harsh conditions of disaster areas, understanding of current feature of collapsed buildings, terrain, and other infrastructures is critical issue for disaster managers. However, because of difficulties in acquiring the geographical information of the disaster site such as large disaster site and limited capability of rescue workers, comprehensive site investigation of current location of survivors buried under the remains of the building is not an easy task for disaster managers. To overcome these circumstances of disaster site, this study makes use of an unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone to effectively acquire current image data from the large disaster areas. The framework of 3D model reconstruction of disaster site using aerial imagery acquired by drones was also presented. The proposed methodology is expected to assist rescue workers and disaster managers in achieving a rapid and accurate identification of survivors under the collapsed building.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.501-511
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• 2022

Three-dimensional (3D) models have become crucial for improving civil infrastructure analysis, and they can be used for various purposes such as damage detection, risk estimation, resolving potential safety issues, alarm detection, and structural health monitoring. 3D point cloud data is used not only to make visual models but also to analyze the states of structures and to monitor them using semantic data. This study proposes automating the generation of high-quality 3D point cloud data and removing noise using deep learning algorithms. In this study, large-format aerial images of civilian infrastructure, such as cut slopes and dams, which were captured by drones, were used to develop a workflow for automatically generating a 3D point cloud model. Through image cropping, downscaling/upscaling, semantic segmentation, generation of segmentation masks, and implementation of region extraction algorithms, the generation of the point cloud was automated. Compared with the method wherein the point cloud model is generated from raw images, our method could effectively improve the quality of the model, remove noise, and reduce the processing time. The results showed that the size of the 3D point cloud model created using the proposed method was significantly reduced; the number of points was reduced by 20-50%, and distant points were recognized as noise. This method can be applied to the automatic generation of high-quality 3D point cloud models of civil infrastructures using aerial imagery.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.6 s.52
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• pp.137-145
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• 2006

Recently, the interests in structural monitoring of civil infrastructures are increased. Especially, as the civil infrastructures such as bridges, tunnels and buildings become large-scale, it is necessary to monitor and maintain the safety state of the structures, which requires smart systems that can supply long-term monitoring during the service time of the structures. In this paper, we investigated the possibilities of fiber optic sensor application to the various structures. We investigate the possibility of using fiber optic Bragg grating sensors to joint structure. The sensors show good response to the structural behavior of the joint while electric gauges lack of sensitivity, durability and long term stability for continuous monitoring. We also apply fiber optic structural monitoring to the composite repaired concrete beam structure. Peel-out effects is detected with optical fiber Bragg grating sensors and the strain difference between main structure and repaired carbon sheets is observed when they separate each other. The real field test was performed to verify the behaviors of fiber Bragg grating sensors attached to the containment structure in Uljin nuclear power plant in Korea as a part of structural integrity test which demonstrates that the structural response of the non-prototype primary containment structures. The optical fiber Bragg grating sensor smart system which is the probable means for long term assessments can be applicable to monitoring of structural members in various civil infrastructures.