Advancing structural health monitoring: A vibration-based IoT approach for remote real-time systems

Abstract

In the modern world, civil engineering structures are of paramount importance. Early damage detection through continuous health monitoring, instead of conventional periodic inspection, is the promising way forward for healthy structures with the least maintenance requirement. The damage is identified at the initial stage, so the cost associated with its repair can be reduced. Considering the immense scale of civil infrastructure, currently, available structural health monitoring systems are not feasible for mass application as they are prohibitively expensive. Hence, it is the need of the hour to develop a remote real-time Structural Health Monitoring System (SHMS). In the current study, a system is proposed that utilizes a vibration-based structural health monitoring approach and extracts dynamic parameters from acceleration data. The system consists of a node tasked with data collection and transmission and a server assigned with data post-processing and results display. The node comprises the following main hardware components: ESP32 as a microcontroller unit and ADXL345 as an accelerometer. The system was developed with the capability of multiple node integration, onboard data storage to eliminate sampling rate inconsistencies, dual trigger modes to achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), power usage optimization to prolong stand-by time, and wireless data transmission along with automated post-processing. To minimize the cost of the system, Internet of Things (IoT) technology was adopted to develop the system.