Virtual Reality Damage Process Education System for Deteriorating Bridges

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR)/Three-dimensional computer graphics (3-D CG) is a technology that creates a virtual three -dimensional space in a computer to visually reproduce the texture and movement of objects. Due to the significant improvement of the performance of computers and price reduction of software and various peripheral equipment in recent years, VR/3-D CG is rapidly becoming widespread and used for various purposes including scientific s imulation and entertainment. It is also widely used in civil engineering for such purposes as aesthetic evaluation during planning and design phases, analytical simulations , and damage detection with real-time health monitoring. In this study, using above-mentioned great advantage of VR, a damage process education system as an “on the job training system” is developed for education of unskilled bridge maintenance engineers related to deteriorating bridges. The proposed system will greatly help not only easy-to-understand but also enlighten them on the importance of safety evaluation and management of existing bridges. The deterioration sequence and damage progress in the future are reproduce for some actual bridges in the system, then i t is found that the proposed VR system helps efficiency bridge engineers related to bridge management understand easily what are the major processes in the deteriorating bridges in the future , how to improve their performance, and what kind of repair/strengthening works is most convenient for the deteriorating bridges. Bridge monitoring system via information technology is capable of providing more accurate knowledge of bridge performance characteristics than traditional strategies. This paper also describes an integrated internet monitoring system that consists of a Stand -alone Monitoring System (SMS) and a Web-based Internet Monitoring System (IMS) for bridge maintenance. IMS, as a web-based system, is capable of addressing the remote monitoring by introducing measuring information derived from SMS into the system through Internet or Intranet connected by either PHS or LAN. Moreover, the key functions of IMS such as data management system, condition assessment and decision-making with the proposed system are also introduced in this paper.