A Sensor Platform for Subsurface and Aboveground Inspection of Bridges

最近备受瞩目的桥梁故障，如2013年卡尔加里弓河上的铁路桥和2018年意大利热那亚的一条主要道路，都将桥梁维护问题置于突出地位。在铁路桥事故发生后不久，一名铁路公司官员在接受加拿大广播公司采访时表示，当你的水位这么高，你在水中找不到潜水员，你也无法在水中找到任何仪器时，你如何判断下面是否有问题？如果铁轨是水平的，下面没有任何事情发生。*目前的检查和桥梁管理策略依赖于目测检查，从而产生定性和主观的检查数据。*……目测无法发现许多隐藏的劣化机制，如地基冲刷。此外，目前使用的简单化的基于状态的恶化模型缺乏可靠地解决许多结构恶化机制的演变的能力。申请人和他的合作者正在研究克服目前检查和管理做法中的这些缺陷的技术。*获取跨越水体(如河流、溪流)的桥梁的定量检测数据，特别是对水下发生的破坏机制，如桥墩的冲刷和退化，是具有挑战性的。然而，如果没有这些数据，就不可能校准和验证申请人为可靠地维护和检查桥梁而开发的定量决策支持工具。正在申请的系统将由一辆移动水面车辆组成，配备了几个传感器，包括声纳、视觉、激光雷达和温度传感器。该平台可用于构建地图，可使用申请者团队正在开发的复杂计算机视觉算法进行询问，以便检测和量化对元素的破坏，从而为验证他们正在开发的概率退化模型提供基础。*该系统将提供这类能力中的第一个，并将支持加拿大研究教席、探索赠款和申请者的合作活动。三名研究生实习生将致力于开发该平台，并使用所获得的数据来为桥梁维护计划提供概率劣化模型。拟议活动所产生的跨学科技能将传授必要的技能，并为明天的工作做好准备。*气候变化的影响已经通过洪泛率的增加表现出来，从而使加拿大和世界各地横跨河流和溪流的大量桥梁处于危险之中。因此，这项研究既及时又有益，因为申请人和他的团队提出的活动将支持并极大地改进加拿大和其他地方此类脆弱桥梁的现有检查和桥梁管理战略。

Recent high-profile bridge failures such as the railway bridge over Bow River in Calgary in 2013 and a major roadway in Genoa, Italy, in 2018 have brought the issue of bridge maintenance to the fore. During an interview to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation soon after the railway bridge incident a railway company official said, "[w]hen you have water up so high, and you can't get a diver in the water … and you can't get any instrumentation in the water, how do you tell if there is a problem below? You look at the rails … if the rails are level, nothing is happening below." ******Current inspection and bridge management strategies rely on visual inspections, resulting in qualitative and subjective inspection data. Visual inspections cannot uncover many hidden deterioration mechanisms such as foundation scour. Furthermore, the simplistic state-based deterioration models currently being used lack the ability to reliably address the evolution of many structural deterioration mechanisms. The applicant and his collaborators are working on technologies which overcome such deficiencies in current inspection and management practices. ******Acquiring quantitative inspection data from bridges spanning water bodies (e.g., rivers, streams), especially for those damage mechanisms occurring under water such as scour and degradation of piers, is challenging. However, without such data, it is not possible to calibrate and validate quantitative decision-support tools being developed by the applicants needed to maintain and inspect bridges reliably. The system being requested will be comprised of a mobile surface vehicle, outfitted with several sensors including sonar, vision, lidar and thermal. This platform can be used to build maps which can be interrogated using sophisticated computer vision algorithms being developed by the applicants' teams in order to detect and quantify damage to elements, thereby providing the basis to validate probabilistic degradation models being developed by them. ******This system will present the first of this kind capability and will support the Canada Research Chair, Discovery Grant and the collaborative activities of the applicant. Three graduate student trainees will work on developing this platform and in using the data so acquired to inform probabilistic deterioration models for bridge maintenance planning. The inter-disciplinary skill set as a result of the proposed activities will impart the necessary skills and prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow. ******Impacts of climate change are already being manifested through increased rates of flooding, thereby putting a large number of bridges spanning rivers and streams in Canada and world-wide at risk. Hence this research is both timely and beneficial, as the activities proposed by the applicant and his team would support and drastically improve current inspection and bridge management strategies for such vulnerable bridges in Canada and elsewhere.********