Abstract
Structural health monitoring with wireless sensor networks has been increasingly popular in recent years because of the convenience. In this paper, a real-time monitoring system for cracks on the surface of reactor containment buildings is presented. Customized wireless sensor networks platforms are designed and implemented with sensors especially for crack monitoring, which include crackmeters and temperature detectors. Software protocols like route discovery, time synchronization and data transfer are developed to satisfy the requirements of the monitoring system and stay simple at the same time. Simulation tests have been made to evaluate the performance of the system before full scale deployment. The real-life deployment of the crack monitoring system is carried out on the surface of reactor containment building in Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station during the in-service pressure test with 30 wireless sensor nodes.
Highlights
Civil infrastructure usually plays an important role in society’s prosperity [1]
Pressure tests could last as long as two weeks and one very important task during tests is to inspect the surface of the Reactor containment building (RCB) and measure the changes of crack width on the concrete structure in real-time
Each wireless sensor node in a structural monitoring system is responsible for three primary functions: data acquisition, signal processing and wireless communication
Summary
Civil infrastructure usually plays an important role in society’s prosperity [1]. The safety of these structures during their normal operations cannot be neglected as any health problem as a result from them may cause severe life and property loss, which has happened many times in the past. Traditional wired monitoring systems have advantages in acquiring high-fidelity data and robustness, but they still have some drawbacks Such systems require electronic cables to deliver data sampled by limit sensors to a central device, which usually could be time consuming and expensive for installation and maintenance. Installing these cabled sensors on large civil structures could sometimes interfere with their everyday normal operations. Many SHM systems based on WSNs have been implemented on various civil structures including bridges, tunnels, and tall buildings and so on. Installed a WSN monitoring system on a tall building called Diwang Tower with eight sensor nodes and comparisons were made with the cable-based system.
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