Construction monitoring through structural responses

Automated construction sites involve many complexities related to micro-level details and it is impossible to anticipate all the conditions that might arise. Unless the structure is carefully monitored, accidents may happen. In this research, we use structural responses to monitor the state of construction. Using the principles of system identification, we attempt to infer normal and abnormal conditions that might arise during construction. A hybrid algorithm, combining model based methods and machine learning, is used for identifying the state of the system. The input data to the machine learning module consists of a time series of acceleration and strain components. The goal is to output the class labels denoting different structural states. Initial experiments have been conducted using an automated construction system in which nine accelerometers and eight strain gauges were used to measure structural responses at regular time intervals. Training data are sensor readings during controlled experiments as well as simulations. This is used to develop a support vector classification model which is used in prediction. Results from the experiments will be presented in the seminar. Application of the methodology to a railway bridge in Chennai will also be presented.

Dr. Benny Raphael is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Madras. He did his BTECH and M.S. in Civil Engineering at IIT Madras and obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He worked at Infosys Technologies Ltd. Bangalore, EPFL Switzerland and NUS Singapore, before joining IIT Madras. He co-authored the books Fundamentals of Computer Aided Engineering (John Wiley, 2003) and Engineering Informatics (John Wiley, 2013) which are used as textbooks in many Universities. He won the distinguished R&D award from the Minister for National Development (Government of Singapore) in 2011 for innovations in developing the Zero Energy Building at the BCA Academy, Singapore. He has published about 60 papers in peer reviewed international journals and has won the best paper award of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering in the years 2008 and 2013. His research interests are in the areas of optimization, computer aided engineering, BIM, automation and control, and energy efficient buildings.