Chennai : Eminent structural engineering experts have stressed on the need of using sensors and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for monitoring and maintenance of vital infrastructure in the country including bridges both road and rail, dams and tunnels .
“Innovations in terms of instrumentation, data analysis, and artificial intelligence offer great potential for the monitoring and maintenance of infrastructures, as a complement to traditional visual inspection methods. Bridges are an example of this. As maintaining bridges, the nerve centers of road and rail networks, in good condition is a major security and availability issue for users. It is a gigantic task.” Said
Dr. N. Anandavalli, Director, CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre, Chennai while speaking at a seminar on “Capacity Augmentation & Service Life Enhancement of Bridges” – Managing assets for maximizing service life and serviceability demands innovative and modern technologies organised by India chapter of the International Road Federation (IRF) .
“Bridges, and civil engineering works in general (tunnels, dams, etc.), are subjected to a normal ageing process linked to environmental conditions, the action of water and air in particular, and to conditions of use, especially the intensity of road and rail traffic. Today, the assessment of their condition relies mainly on visual inspection, a method deemed insufficient by experts as it does not enable the detection of all pathologies and defects that appear and develop within the structure. What’s more, it is subjective and tedious as it requires the analysis of a large number of photographs with the naked eye.” Said Dr.Anandavalli.
“Recent innovations in terms of instrumentation, data analysis, and artificial intelligence (AI) offer great potential for the monitoring of civil engineering works. They are to make it easier to detect and measure defects as well as understand them better and even anticipate their evolution in time so as to better plan renovation or repair works. The promise is to reduce maintenance costs while increasing the lifespan and availability of bridges.” She said.
“ At present critical component sensors for monitoring infrastructure is being imported at heavy cost, High time India should develop its own sensors to avoid imports and large monitoringof indrastructure” she added.
“Monitoring the condition of bridges is based mainly on two principles: visual inspections, carried out on the ground by engineers to detect any possible cracks and degradations, and the collection of physical data (acceleration data for example) by networks of sensors installed on or in the structures. This last method, called Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), offers several advantages compared to visual inspections, but a major barrier to its adoption is its costs that are still too high” said Dr Gopal Rai CEO , Dhirendra Group of company (DGC)
Others who were present at the seminar included Prof P.K.Sikdar advisor, IRF-IC and Mr S.K.Puri , Director , ICT a major global infrastructure consultancy company .