Timely identification of damage is critical in order to ensure the safe operation of bridges and, more generally, civil structures and infrastructure, including by sending alerts. In addition, structural monitoring can provide relevant information for structural management and maintenance. Structural monitoring approaches can be classified into two main categories: global methods and local methods. The former can be applied when damage has not yet occurred: in that case it can be identified from changes in structural response, observed continuously, compared to the reference state at the start of monitoring.
Vibration-based structural monitoring techniques fall into this first category. Local structural monitoring methods, on the other hand, assume that the damage has already been identified, merely tracking its evolution over time. Application examples include monitoring crack width or corrosion degradation. Regardless of the method applied, however, environmental and/or operational variables can affect the reliability of monitoring results.
Over the years, S2X has developed proprietary algorithms and processing software and today offers advanced solutions for structural monitoring based on the analysis of the time evolution of the structure’s modal parameters estimated from vibration response measurements under operating conditions. In particular, S2X’s innovative algorithms and software for the automatic identification and monitoring of modal parameters, and those for compensating for the influence of environmental and/or operational variables, make our vibration-based monitoring systems efficient and reliable, fully customizable to the user’s needs, and with minimal oversight requirements.
S2X also develops local structural monitoring systems for specific applications. They integrate different types of sensors and procedures for compensation of environmental effects. Local and global structural monitoring methods can also be combined into a single system, if necessary.
Appropriately designed, monitoring systems can be applied to a variety of civil structures, including:
- Bridges
- Buildings
- Hospitals
- Historic and/or monumental structures
- Special structures (reservoirs, wind turbines, dams, stadiums, walls…).
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