Sensors for Infrastructure Assessment

Abstract

Infrastructure facilities management is a civil engineering task that will grow in significance throughout the next century. Many of the tools and techniques that currently support design and new construction do not apply to this emerging area. A critical need exists for better tools and supporting information to support M&R (maintenance and rehabilitation) decisions. Inventory, condition, and performance data describing the physical status of facilities and components are a primary information source supporting these decisions. These physical assessment data, which serve as the basis of billions of M&R expenditure dollars, are currently incomplete, inaccessible, or nonexistent. This situation leads to costly reactive maintenance and project overruns, and prevents organizations from implementing rational M&R programs. In contrast, the recent revolution in sensors, electronics, and computers has made technology available that can rapidly collect this physical data and automatically enter it into the management database. Recent developments in this area demonstrate the promise of technology, but there is a long way to go before it will have a significant impact on infrastructure facilities management. Impediments to the full exploitation of this technology lie in the lack of a profit motive, the need to adapt traditional management methods to the new information capabilities, and the lack of a clear-cut rational for technological performance specifications. These hudrles pose a challenge that can only be met with a perspective that integrates knowledge of materials, structures, sensors, data acquisition systems, computers, facilities and database management, and decision analysis. The challenge is to civil engineering departments and educators, to structure interdisciplinary programs that produce researchers and practitioners with a comprehensive perspective on infrastructure management.