Citation:
Feargal Brennan, Stress Monitoring of Civil and Mechanical Engineering Infrastructure, 2nd World Congress on Enginering Asset Management – 4th International Conference on Condition Monitoring 2007, 11-14 June 2007, Harrogate, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Structural Integrity Monitoring is a rapidly growing science and practice which
promises in the future to measure and record every shudder and twitch within the
lifetime of future structural components. Indeed, structures will undoubtedly possess
nervous systems which will sense and instantly communicate loading and damage
information; however, it is timely to stand back and consider what is required from
such systems before we drown in yotta-bytes of monitored data.
The electronics industry is rapidly developing clever wireless data transmission and
more efficient storage methods, with increased sampling frequencies and multiplexing
technologies which can distract even the most focused Civil or Mechanical Engineer.
Stress measurement and monitoring is more complex than traditional NDT which
considers defect and crack detection, but if understood properly can in some ways be
much simpler and promises safer and better optimised structures.
The paper reports several case studies of stress monitoring in Rail applications and of
Steel Structures using Stress Memory Technology and will discuss how stress
monitoring systems might be evaluated in terms of reliability and value.