Structural Health Monitoring: From Virtual Shakers to Machine Learning

To Be Presented:  April 29th, 10:00 AM Central Time
Speaker: Professor Ahsan Kareem, University of Notre Dame

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ABSTRACT

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is a critical means of assessing the performance of aging civil infrastructure. Earlier studies used heavy dynamic shakers to assess the dynamics of structures, which are unwieldy and reliance has been shifted to ambient vibration of structures to extract dynamic features. This study introduces a “virtual shaker” concept that effectively replaces the physical shaker and provides all the desired features for SHM. Examples are provided along with an App that facilitates the use of this concept to identify dynamic features. A traditional structural health monitoring (SHM) operation requires a wired system, which is often termed “hub and spoke” because the sensors are located throughout the structure and then wired to a central data acquisition server. To avoid issues associated with long cables, a unique prototype system in SHM, SmartSync, an “IoT”, with “edge computing,” which utilizes the building's existing Internet backbone as a system of “virtual” instrumentation cables and limited computations at the sensor location has been developed. Since the system is modular and largely “plug-and-play”, the units can be rapidly deployed at any location with access to power and an Internet connection and has been implemented in the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. For rural footbridges remotely located, the citizen sensing approach has been used to monitor their response in storms and to identify their dynamic feature. An example from Nicaragua will be presented. In an age of unprecedented sensing technology that allows for greater volumes of climate and infrastructure-related data to be collected and analyzed places a new demand. This proliferation of data has led to building data-driven models to better assess our infrastructure and implement solutions oriented towards sustainability and resiliency. The seminar will address new developments in system identification involving non-stationary observations and their real-time monitoring. Machine learning is becoming ubiquitous in this context and is enabling data-to-model and automated feature extraction from SHM observations. The use of various machine learning schemes embedded with Hilbert, Wavelet and Shapelet transforms will be presented with examples from Burj Khalifa, Sutong Yangtze River Bridge and the European Union’s surface wind monitoring in the Port of Genoa, Italy. 

 

SPEAKER

Ahsan Kareem is the Robert M. Moran Professor of Engineering and the Director of the NatHaz Modeling Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame.  His work focuses on probabilistic characterization and formulation of dynamic load effects due to wind, waves and earthquakes on tall buildings, long-span bridges, offshore structures and other structures, via fundamental experimental, laboratory and full-scale measurements utilizing cyber and cyber-physical infrastructures, for their safety assessment and mitigation measure.

He is elected President of the International Association for Wind Engineering (IAWE). He has been awarded numerous honors, including the inaugural Presidential Young Investigator Award from the White House. A recipient of ASCE’s: Theodore von Karman Medal, Nathan Newmark Medal, Masanobu Shinozuka Medal, James Croes Medal, Earnest Howard Medal, Robert H. Scanlan Medal and Jack E. Cermak Medal and State-of-the-Art Award, inducted to the Offshore Technology Conference Hall of Fame and Distinguished Member of ASCE; Alan G. Davenport Medal of IAWE; Distinguished Research Award of IASSAR (Int’l Assoc. for Structural. Safety and Reliability); delivered 2013 Scruton Lecturer at the Institute of Civil Engineers, London. He has been appointed Honorary Professor at several universities overseas including Tsinghua and Tongji in PROC. He serves on the Editorial Board of several international journals and has recently co-authored three books. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a foreign member of the Indian, Chinese and Japanese Academies of Engineering.  

 

 

Monitoring Technologies for Smart Cities and Civil Infrastructure Systems

Presented:  March 23rd, 11:00 AM Central Time
Speaker: Professor F. Necati Catbas, University of Central Florida

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ABSTRACT

The proportion of urban population in the world is expected to increase from 54% currently to 70% by 2050. A majority of Americans also reside in urban regions - according to the 2010 census 80% of Americans reside in urban areas. Given the large number of urban citizens in the world (and US) it is imperative that we identify solutions to improve the quality of life for urban residents and economic vitality of our cities. Studies to address and fulfill the needs of envisioned future smart city infrastructure should successfully integrate a range of engineering, humanities and sociological fields such as emerging communication technologies, Internet of Things (IoT), cyber security, cloud computing, intelligent transportation, infrastructure monitoring, analyzing tourism, theorizing structures of government and bureaucracy, project financing, public policy development and implementation. In this talk, we will first three overarching themes: (1) technologically advanced infrastructure with sensing and communication capability, (2) urban operations and services improved with better decisions using multilayered “big data”, and (3) utilization of technology for social, public policy, planning and governance to improve urban quality of life. Next, we will present a sampling of relevant U.S. research and education achievements in structural control and monitoring as compiled by U.S. Panel that are envisioned as concepts for smart cities. Finally, we will present our recent work at UCF CITRS in the area of structural health monitoring where novel technologies such as computer vision, deep learning have been developed for our existing and next generation of smart city infrastructure.

 

SPEAKER

Dr. F. Necati Catbas, Ph.D. is Lockheed Martin St. Laurent Professor at the Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering Department of the University of Central Florida (UCF) and the Founding Director of CITRS. Dr. Catbas’ research interests span theoretical, experimental and applied aspects of structural identification, structural health monitoring, non-destructive evaluation, condition assessment of structural systems and earthquake engineering with applications on structures such as bridges, buildings, aerospace structures and components, stadium structures. He is in the editorial board of several journals including, Associate Editor for the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering, Handling Editor for Journal of the Transportation Research Board (TRR), the Structure and Infrastructure Engineering Journal. He served in the Executive Board of Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM), served as the Chair of the ASCE Structural Identification Technical Committee, among others. Dr. Catbas received several awards and honors for his research, teaching and service activities, such as Aftab Mufti Medal from International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure, Kikuchi-Karlaftis Award from Transportation Research Board. Dr. Catbas is a registered professional engineer in the State of Florida, and he is an elected Fellow of the ASCE and Fellow of the SEI. Dr. Catbas is also co-Chair of the 8th World Conference on Structural Control and Monitoring (8WCSCM) to be held during the period June 5-9, 2022 in Orlando, Florida (https://8wcscm.org).

CASE STUDIES OF PROBLEMATIC EXPANSIVE SOILS: CHARACTERIZATION CHALLENGES, INNOVATIVE STABILIZATION DESIGNS, AND NOVEL MONITORING METHODS

Presented:  June 3rd, 10:00 AM Central Time
Speaker: Dr. Anand J. Puppala, Texas A&M University

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ABSTRACT

This presentation describes key research works on expansive soils, the methods employed to characterize them, and fallacies in the current characterization of expansive soils. Novel swell characterization models that account for hydro, chemical, and mechanical behaviors of soils are introduced and used in various case studies to improve expansive soil stabilization practices. An innovative design method for successful stabilization of expansive soil is introduced in one case study which incorporated both basic clay mineralogy and unsaturated soil behaviors, as well as performance-based durability studies. Sulfate soil stabilization works on medium-to-high sulfate soils are presented in another case study. The last case study involving steep earthen embankment built with expansive clayey soils and experiencing recurring surficial slope failures and maintenance issues is presented along with forensic studies explaining the causes of slope failures. All case studies reveal the need for understanding of soil chemistry, including clay mineralogy and sulfate screening studies, to improve the current field stabilization and infrastructure design on expansive soils. The last section of the talk focuses on recent innovations for better health monitoring and management of civil infrastructure built on expansive soils using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms and visualization tools, which will be valuable in validating the application of new materials in infrastructure design and construction processes as well as for health monitoring and asset management practices.

 

SPEAKER

Dr. Anand J. Puppala currently serves as A. P. Wiley and Florence Chair of Zachry Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University and is also an Associate Director of Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR), both appointments started since September, 2019. He served as Associate Dean - Research in College of Engineering for 7+ years and was a Distinguished Scholar Professor in the Civil Engineering department at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in Texas, USA since 1996 Dr. Puppala is the current chair of Soil Mechanics section (AFS00) of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and is a member of Design and Construction group of TRB. He also chaired American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)’s Geotechnical Institute’s (GI) “Engineering Geology and Site Characterization” committee and TRB committee on ‘Soil and Rock Instrumentation’. Dr. Puppala also served as President of United States Universities Council on Geotechnical Education and Research (USUCGER) from 2007-2009.

Dr. Puppala has been conducting research on stabilization of expansive soils, UAVs for infrastructure monitoring studies and asset management studies, dam safety and embankments slope studies, in situ intrusive methods for site characterization, infrastructure resilience and material characterization studies. Dr. Puppala has been a recipient of several major research grants totaling over 22+ Millions of dollars from federal, state, and local government agencies. Dr. Puppala is the current director of NSF’s Industry University Co-operative Research Center (IUCRC) site on Composites in Civil Infrastructure (CICI) at TAMU. He has been serving as program director of TRANSET, a University Transportation Center (UTC) based in LSU. Dr. Puppala’s research scholarly record included 480+ publications including 200+ Journals and he has also edited seven special publications. He has supervised 35 Doctoral and 52 Masters’ thesis students and is currently advising 11 doctoral students and two postdoctoral fellows. Dr. Puppala is an editorial member for several major journals in Civil Engineering including ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Journal of Materials, ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal and edited several books including seven ASCE Special Publications. He has given several Keynote and invited talks all over the World including a prestigious ASCE GI Peck talk at 2020 GeoCongress Meeting held at Minneapolis, Minnesota.

 

Q&A

Question: Could you please tell me some improvements other than using piles, mixing with sand, lime or bentonite? Could you give us some suggestions to stabilize this kind of soil (expansive soils)?

Answer: We are working with geo-synthetics (wicking geo-textiles and geo-cells...some papers published in TRB and other places), Geopolymers (on-going) and GGBFS (works are done in Singapore and others places....we are also looking at polymer emulsions and nanosilica for some on-going works for US Army Corps and UTCs. Suggestion is do the lab design with performance based durability study before you implement in the practice.

 

Question: Is it envisaged in the future to use drones to determine the exact depth of the swelling soil layer?

Answer: Imagery mostly surficial....spectral cameras (multi-spectral and hyper-spectral cameras) can identify clay minerals but they are surficial at best...if there is a cut exposes soils at different depths, you can identify the clay minerals...right now from top down, difficult to identify except for an inch. or two.

 

 

Resilience-Informed Guidance Through Modeling and Interdisciplinary Field Studies

Presented:  April 19th, 11:00 AM Central Time
Speaker: Dr. John W. van de Lindt, Colorado State University

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ABSTRACT

The study of community resilience requires modeling of each sector across a community, but the sectors must interact, often representing contributions from different scientific disciplines.  This type of complex modeling requires the analyst to not only have an understanding of disciplines outside of engineering but to actively work and engage with key experts in sociology/planning and economics.  This presentation began with an overview of the Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning’s approach to merge engineering, social science/planning, and economics to form the Interdependent Networked Community Resilience Modeling Environment (IN-CORE).  This includes learning from an interdisciplinary longitudinal field study beginning in 2016 to present for flooding in Lumberton, NC, including challenges posed by a second hurricane and the pandemic on data collection and interpretation.  The presentation closed with an illustrative example application of a community planning for tornado hazard and an example of resilience-informed policy guidance.             

SPEAKER

Dr. John W. van de Lindt is the Harold H. Short Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University. Over the last two decades van de Lindt’s research program has focused on performance-based engineering and test bed applications of building and other systems for earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes and floods.  Professor van de Lindt is the Co-director for the National Institute of Standards and Technology-funded Center of Excellence (COE) for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning headquartered at Colorado State University entering its seventh year.  He has published more than 400 technical articles and reports including more than 200 journal papers, and currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering.

The Evolution of Structural column testing methods-a new loading equipment MUST

Presented:  April 3rd, 2020, 2:00 PM Central Time at Butler-Carlton Hall
Speaker: Dr. Yan Xiao, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

ABSTRACT

Columns are the most important structural elements in buildings and bridges to transfer the gravity loads to foundation and to resist any lateral loads. Particularly in the case of earthquakes or other accidental events, structural columns need to be designed to resist strong lateral loading effects while maintaining a sound support of the gravity load. Approximately from the mid-fifties of last century, experimental studies on structural columns subjected to the lateral load dominant loading condition became one of the most important research areas. This presentation reviews the development and evolution of the testing methods for experimentally studying behaviors of structural columns. Following the needs of testing larger scale columns, the axial loading becomes a challenge. The presentation discusses the problems in conventional methods for axial loading in seismic simulation tests. It was from the examination of the problems in existing axial loading methods that the presenter has conceived and developed a new type of large-scale structural testing system MUST (Multiple Usage Structural Testing equipment). The new equipment has the advantages of maintaining the axial loading to be perpendicular to the lateral loading and the actual forces applied to the model specimen can be directly monitored, thus overcoming the problems in conventional testing systems. The first MUST system (2d-MUST, shown in Fig.1a) was installed at the Hunan University, which possesses the vertical loading capacity of 20000kN and the lateral loading capacity of 4000kN. The second MUST system (3d-MUST, Fig1b) completed at Nanjing Tech Univ. has capacities of 10000kN in vertical, and 3000kN in two horizontal directions), capable for three directional pseudo-dynamic simulation. The presentation also discusses the testing results of eight full-scale large-size wide-flange steel columns using the 2d-MUST equipment.

SPEAKER

Dr. Y. Xiao is a Changjiang/Qianren Distinguished Professor and serves as the Program Director for Energy, Environment and Infrastructure Sciences, in the Zhejiang University – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Joint Institute (ZJUI), Zhejiang University. Dr. Xiao received his Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Tianjin University, China, in 1982, his Master and Doctor of Engineering degrees from the Kyushu University, Japan, in 1986 and 1989, respectively. Prof. Xiao’s professional and academic experiences include assistant research scientist at University of California, San Diego, tenure-track and tenured full professor at the University of Southern California. He was previously the dean of Civil Engineering College at Nanjing Tech University (2015-2018), and the Hunan University (2006-2015). He serves as the associate editors for the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering, Journal of Bridge Engineering, and editorial board member of the Journal of Constructional Steel Research. He is an elected fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and American Concrete Institute (ACI). He is a registered Professional Engineer in California.

 

Prof. Xiao’s scholarly contributions are in areas related to confined concrete, hybrid and composite structures, applications of advanced composites, retrofit/repair of structures, impact effects, and large-scale experimentation, etc. His recent research and industrial efforts are focused on developing modern bamboo structures for buildings and bridges with the goal of promoting environmentally and eco-friendly construction. He holds the award winning technology of GluBam.

DIFFUSION AND UNIFORMITY OF RECYCLED ASPHALT IN PAVEMENTS

Presented:  December 4th, 2019, 2:30 PM Central Time at 121 Butler-Carlton Hall
Speaker: Dr. Baoshan Huang, University of Tennessee-Knoxville

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ABSTRACT

Asphalt pavements covers over 93 percent of the paved roads in the United States. The use of recycled asphalt into pavement maintenance and construction has been a common practice. However the lack of understanding of the interaction between recycled and virgin asphalt poses a change on the efficient use of recycled asphalt, and often causes pavement premature failures. The present study addressed some fundamental aspects associated with the beneficial use of recycled asphalt into asphalt paving mixtures: 1) how much recycled asphalt can be mobilized into a uniform asphalt coating in the mixture? and 2) will the mobilized old asphalt co-mingle with virgin asphalt to form a homogeneous material? Analytical chemical procedure and fluorescence microscopy (FM), and molecular dynamics simulation have been utilized for the analyses. The results have provided better understandings on the homogenization process between the recycled and virgin asphalt; thus provide better guidance to efficient use of recycled asphalt pavements.

SPEAKER

Baoshan Huang, Ph.D.,P.E, is the Edwin G. Burdette Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where he has been employed since January 2002. He earned his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees at Tongji University in China and a Ph.D. at Louisiana State University. His areas of research include transportation infrastructure materials, pavement engineering, geotechnical engineering, and infrastructural asset management. Over the last fifteen years of his professional career, Dr. Huang has secured over ten million dollars of research funding to support his research activities. He has been actively involved in many professional committees, including the Transportation Research Board (TRB), Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists (AAPT), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the International Society of Asphalt Pavement (ISAP). He was the chair of the ASCE Bituminous Materials Committee (BMC) during 2010-2012, and has been associate editors for the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, Journal of Transportation Engineering - Part B: Pavements, Journal of Cleaner Production, and serves in editorial boards for several international journals. Dr. Huang has published over 180 (SCI Indexed) journal papers and holds five US patents (one pending), one International patent, and three Chinese patents (two pending) on innovative infrastructure materials design and characterization.