Abstract
Maintenance strategies based on structural health monitoring can provide effective support in the optimization of scheduled repair of existing structures, thus enabling their lifetime to be extended. With specific regard to reinforced concrete (RC) structures, the state of the art seems to still be lacking an efficient and cost-effective technique capable of monitoring material properties continuously over the lifetime of a structure. Current solutions can typically only measure the required mechanical variables in an indirect, but economic, manner, or directly, but expensively. Moreover, most of the proposed solutions can only be implemented by means of manual activation, making the monitoring very inefficient and then poorly supported. This paper proposes a structural health monitoring system based on a wireless sensor network (WSN) that enables the automatic monitoring of a complete structure. The network includes wireless distributed sensors embedded in the structure itself, and follows the monitoring-based maintenance (MBM) approach, with its ABCDE paradigm, namely: accuracy, benefit, compactness, durability, and easiness of operations. The system is structured in a node level and has a network architecture that enables all the node data to converge in a central unit. Human control is completely unnecessary until the periodic evaluation of the collected data. Several tests are conducted in order to characterize the system from a metrological point of view and assess its performance and effectiveness in real RC conditions.
Highlights
Since buildings and infrastructures are potentially subjected to environmental degradation or hazard-induced damages, it is necessary that safety, functionality and durability requirements be met throughout their service life
All the literature about wireless power transfer (WPT) methods, in particular the work by Angrisani et al [16,17,18,19,20], proposes an inductive WPT method based on very low frequency signals to transfer energy within a range up to 30 cm, suitably outperforming commercial inductive chargers, whose operating range is limited to 5 cm
A structural health monitoring solution based on a wireless sensor network has
Summary
Since buildings and infrastructures are potentially subjected to environmental degradation or hazard-induced damages, it is necessary that safety, functionality and durability requirements be met throughout their service life. Passive sensors have been widely studied in recent decades and mainly consist of metallic elements embedded in a given structure Their resonance frequency changes through physical and geometrical variations that are associated with alterations in the mechanical properties of the structure itself [2]. The definition and implementation of such system is still an open challenge and research efforts are required to overcome typical issues such as effective embedment and continuous monitoring of the RC structures over time In this context, the present paper intends to evolve the ideas presented in the previous solutions, while limiting some of the disadvantages, achieving a system that try to solve the MBM paradigm efficiently
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