BIM-based Design of Structural Health Monitoring Systems

Abstract

Although structural health monitoring (SHM) and control is continuously gaining importance, information about SHM and control systems, referred to as “monitoringrelated information”, cannot be fully described on a well-defined, mathematical basis. Monitoring-related information, such as information about the embedded algorithms of sensor nodes deployed, about communication protocols, or about the overall SHM strategies implemented, can advantageously be used for SHM and control system optimization or for the documentation of the SHM and control. The study reported in this paper enables monitoring-related information to be described using building information modeling (BIM). The BIM-based approach builds upon the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), an open BIM standard facilitating the interoperability of BIM models. As will be shown in this paper, the standardized IFC schema will be extended, facilitating BIM-based modeling of SHM and control systems in compliance with the IFC standard. Using the extended IFC schema, a prototype SHM and control system is designed, implemented, and validated on a laboratory test structure.