Abstract
Infrastructures such as aerial tramways carry unique traffic operations and have specific maintenance requirements that demand constant attention. It is common that old structures lack any type of automatization or monitoring systems, relying only on human judgment. Owners are interested in implementing techniques that assist them in making maintenance decisions, but are reluctant to invest in expensive and complex technology. In this study, researchers discussed with the owners different options and proposed a sustainable and cost-efficient solution to monitor the Sandia Peak Tramway operations with just two strategically located acceleration sensors. To maximize the success options researchers worked with the owners and developed a sensor that satisfied their needs. A Low-cost Efficient Wireless Intelligent Sensor 4—Outdoors (LEWIS 4) was developed, tested and validated during the experiment. Two solar-powered units were installed by the tramway staff and recorded data for three days. When retrieved, researchers analyzed the data recorded and concluded that with only two sensors, the acceleration data collected were sufficient to determine the position and location of the tramway cars. It was also found that the sensor on the tower provides data about the cable–tower interaction and the forces caused by the friction on the system, this being a critical maintenance factor. This work summarizes a methodology for infrastructure owners consisting of guidelines to design a sustainable and affordable monitoring approach that is based on the design, development and installation of low-cost sensors.
Highlights
We found information about how the structure responds to the dynamic loads of the cars on movement and how the friction of the cable with the towers is an action that affects the structure, and Sandia Peak Tramway wanted to take this into account for their internal maintenance and management
This interesting finding was the result of a discussion with the owners on the governing structural concerns in their operations and in coordination with the discussion of the data obtained in the field, identifying an unexpected source of dynamic load on the tramway tower that is related to maintenance and operations
We found that the acceleration data collected by the tower sensor provides information about the interaction between the cable and the bearings on the tower
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Researchers have focused their monitoring efforts to inform maintenance actions and engineers monitor the loads in transportation infrastructures to inform owners of management operations [6,7,8] resulting in improvements in environmental and operational efficiency [9,10]. This paper shows how low-cost sensor development with owners can benefit the advancement of automatic monitoring of infrastructure. It is of interest that LEWIS 4 was developed to resist extreme conditions for deployment, operations and retrieval unique to the Tramway of Albuquerque, which is a preferred feature by owners and stakeholders in terms of using low-cost sensors [32]. This research, in collaboration with the owners of the tramway infrastructure, develops, tests and deploys a smart sensor that meets the requirements to successfully monitor the traffic operations of the infrastructure
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