Advancing the Elastic Wave Characterization of Critical Buried Concrete Pipelines

这笔资金将支持创造与地下混凝土管道调查相关的新知识的研究，从而促进科学并促进国家繁荣和福利。混凝土管道是我们基础设施不可或缺的一部分。埋在主要城市地区地下的大直径管道是地下空间的关键动脉，它们的故障有可能造成重大破坏。该项目将展示和推进一种基于弹性波的技术，以准确量化用于修复的地下混凝土管道和内衬的未知弹性特性。在这种技术中，测量管道的动态响应，并通过将响应与理论预测相匹配来计算未知参数。准确测量现场性能的能力将提供机会，以改善这些公用事业的剩余寿命预测，加强其资产管理做法，并降低总体维护成本。该研究项目为创造知识产权、提高美国的竞争力和拓宽土木工程本科教育提供了机会。多道面波分析技术是一种参数反演技术，广泛应用于层状半空间和板状弹性介质的研究。在本项目中，将使用纵向和周向波对埋地混凝土管道进行该技术的研究。其在空间受限的管段中的实施引入了若干挑战。例如，收集密集的波形记录是一项具有挑战性的任务，这对于创建高分辨率色散图像至关重要。为了克服这个问题，稀疏传感技术的最新进展将调查这种管道应用。该项目的科学贡献包括为进行波形反演所需的选择性波传播问题开发分析解决方案，为混凝土管道设计优化的传感器阵列，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

This funding will support research that creates new knowledge related to the investigation of buried concrete pipes, which promotes science and advances the national prosperity and welfare. Concrete pipes constitute an integral part of our infrastructure. The large diameter pipes buried under major urban areas act as critical arteries of the underground space, and their failure has the potential to create major disruptions. This project will demonstrate and advance an elastic wave-based technique to accurately quantify the unknown elastic properties of buried concrete pipes and liners used for their rehabilitation. In this technique the dynamic response of a pipe is measured, and the unknown parameters are calculated by matching the response against the theoretical predictions. The ability to measure the in-situ properties accurately will provide the opportunity to improve the remaining life prediction of these utilities, enhance their asset management practices and reduce the overall cost of maintenance. This research project provides opportunity to generate intellectual property, increase U.S. competitiveness, and broaden the undergraduate civil engineering education.The multichannel surface wave analysis technique is an inverse parameter estimation technique that is widely used in geophysics for investigating the layered half-space and plate like elastic mediums. During this project, this technique will be investigated for buried concrete pipes using longitudinal and circumferential waves. Its implementation in a space restricted pipe segment introduces several challenges. For example, gathering a dense waveform record, which is essential for creating a high-resolution dispersion image, is a challenging task. To overcome this problem, the recent advances in sparse sensing techniques will be investigated for this pipe application. The scientific contributions of this project include the development of analytical solutions for selective wave propagation problems necessary for conducting the waveform inversion, design of sensor array optimized for concrete pipes, and new signal processing algorithms to enable the effective characterization of concrete pipes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.