Structural Engineering Commons^™

An Experimental Investigation Of The Optimum Properties And Conditions For Use Of Anionic Emulsions In Road Maintenance Applications, Simonas Ignatavicius, Alan Kavanagh, David Colleran, Michael J. Brennan, Shane Newell

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Bitumen emulsions are used for a range of road maintenance applications, including surface dressing, gravel seals, slurry seals, tack coating, cold-mix asphalt and in situ pavement recycling. The emulsions used can be classified as being either cationic (i.e. possessing a positive electrostatic surface charge) or anionic (i.e. carrying a negative electrostatic surface charge). The vast majority of emulsions used for such applications in Europe are cationic, while anionic bitumen emulsions are used widely throughout North America and Africa. The aims of the experimental study described in this paper were (a) to investigate why one or the other emulsion type is …

A Review Of Vision Based Methods For Pothole Detection And Road Profile Analysis, Darragh Lydon, S. E. Taylor, Myra Lydon, Julia Early

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

This paper is an overview of the development and application of Computer Vision for the detection of pothole, pavement distress and road profile analysis and categorisation. A brief explanation of the traditional methods for determining these factors is given, followed by a chronological description of the evolution and the challenges of using Computer Vision (CV) approaches to determine these conditions. The paper is separated into sections aligned to image capture and analysis methodologies. Qualitative evaluations and comparison of these methods have been provided along with the proposal of guidelines for new computer vision-based road analysis systems.

Analysis And Optimisation Of Tii’S Pams Reset Values And Deterioration Models For Irish Pavement Conditions, James Quinn, Raymond Mcgowan, Tomas O'Flaherty

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Ireland has a national road network of approximately 5300km that is managed by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII). TII create yearly pavement maintenance and renewal programs from the operation of a Pavement Asset Management System (PAMS). Accurate pavement deterioration models and reset values are an essential part of PAMS and are required for life cycle cost analysis (LCCA). Pavement maintenance and renewal schemes are prioritised based on the LCCA's largest benefit to cost ratio, and therefore optimise the annual pavement maintenance and renewal budget. Currently, TII implement pavement deterioration models and reset values from Austria's and Belgium's PAMS, and are not …

An Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of Bitumen Additives On The Performance Of Pavement Surface Dressings, Alan Anderson, John Casserly, Alan Kavanagh, Jim Campbell

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Surface dressing is a maintenance technique that uses thin layers of bitumen emulsion and single sized aggregates. The surface dressing process seals and binds the surface of a road to protect its substructure from water ingress. It also provides increased skid resistance, which improves safety for road users. Early life chip-loss can occur if there is an insufficient degree of adhesion between the emulsion and aggregate used. The range of additives used in bitumen can have an effect on their adhesion properties. The focus of this research project was to investigate if the use of these additives in surface dressing …

Winter Maintenance On The Irish Road Network, Hugh Mcconnell, Brian Mccann

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Winter maintenance relates to those activities undertaken where the objective is to minimise the impact of frost, ice or snow on the travelling public. The responsibility for winter maintenance of all roads in Ireland currently rests with local authorities and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) (Formerly the NRA) on behalf of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport (DTTaS), (DTTaS, 2017). The aim of the study was to examine current winter maintenance practices undertaken in Ireland by local authorities and the Motorway Maintenance and Renewals Contracts (MMaRC) contractors and examine the potential financial, operational and environmental benefits if pre-wet and brine …

Study The Effect Of Damping Change During The Dynamic Analysis Of A Reinforced Concrete Bridge With Neoprene Cushions, Mais Ghassoun

Emirates Journal for Engineering Research

The damping ratio has a important effect on the dynamic behavior of the bridges. and it is customary when designing to assume it as a predetermined fixed value independent of the response amplitude and frequency of the structure . A lot of experimental research worked on identifying them, but the dependence of damping and other dynamic characteristics of vibration amplitudes and their impact on responses and the results of the analysis need more scrutiny and simulation due to the difficulty of conducting vibration experiments for structures of realistic dimensions and large weights such as a RC bridge, which necessitated a …

Pooled-Fund Project No. Tpf-5(395), Genda Chen

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

The goals of the pooled-fund initiative are to engage closely with several state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) in the early stage of technology development at the INSPIRE University Transportation Center, and leverage the center resources to develop case studies, protocols, and guidelines that can be adopted by state DOTs for bridge inspection without adversely impacting traffic. The initiative involves the integration, field demonstration and documentation of a robotic system of structural crawlers, unmanned aerial vehicles, a multimodal unmanned vehicle, nondestructive devices, sensors, and data analytics. Depending on the interest of participating DOTs, the objectives of this initiative include, but are …

Vision-Based Non-Gps Uav Guidance For Bridge Inspection, Bo Shang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Uav-Based Smart Rock Localization For Determination Of Bridge Scour Depth, Haibin Zhang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

First Place Award in recognition of outstanding achievement in the 2020 Annual Meeting Graduate Student Poster Competition sponsored by INSPIRE University Transportation Center

Bridge Inspection Video Data Analysis For Data-Driven Asset Management, Muhammad Monjurul Karim

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Second Place Award in recognition of outstanding achievement in the 2020 Annual Meeting Graduate Student Poster Competition sponsored by INSPIRE University Transportation Center

Automatic Impact-Sounding Acoustic Inspection Of Concrete Structure, Jinglun Feng

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Experimental Investigation Of A Novel Smart Shear Key For Earthquake And Tsunami Mitigation, Xinzhe Yuan

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement Of Steel Bridge Members Using Mobile Sensors, Yu Otsuki

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Third Place Award in recognition of outstanding achievement in the 2020 Annual Meeting Graduate Student Poster Competition sponsored by INSPIRE University Transportation Center

Data-Driven Risk Assessment Of Bridges Subject To Corrosion And Scour, Yijian Zhang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Clamping Design For Bridge Inspection Robot Deployment Systems (Birds) Prototype Ii, Bo Shang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

No abstract provided.

Bridge Resilience Assessment With Inspire Data, Iris Tien

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Robotic data collection, both automated and remote, will enable post-disaster assessment of bridge components where it would normally be difficult and potentially dangerous for manual inspection by field workers to do so.

This project aims to develop and validate a new framework that uses the data collected from the robotic exploration of infrastructure, particularly after a disaster, to assess the condition of bridges and prioritize these structures for repair. This will improve the resilience of the transportation system to disasters by targeting bridge repairs and enabling resources to be distributed more effectively across the system for more rapid recovery after …

Climbing Robots With Automated Deployment Of Sensors And Nde Devices For Steel Bridge Inspection, Hung La

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

The PI was a research scientist/faculty at Rutgers University who successfully developed in 2014 a Robotic Assisted Bridge Inspection Tool (RABIT) for bridge deck inspections. Other bridge elements, such as girders and columns, or even underside of bridge decks are difficult to access and remain a challenge for efficient inspection. Like visual inspection, current practices for bridge maintenance are equally time consuming and expensive. Automation of simple maintenance actions such as bearing cleaning and concrete sealing with robots will lead to a leap forward to the next-generation strategy of bridge maintenance.

This project aims to develop and prototype automated climbing …

Bridge Inspection Robot Deployment Systems (Birds), Bo Shang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Climbing robots for both concrete and steel bridges and UAVs are being developed to support bridge inspection with advanced evaluation technologies at the INSPIRE University Transportation Center. They are mostly applicable to large open areas with little or no obstacles. For I-shaped beams or girders, climbing along the cross section of these structural members is not a trial task. In particular, a climbing robot may not have a sufficient footprint to make a safe turn from the inner to outer face of a top or bottom flange. In this case, an unmanned vehicle is conceived to facilitate I-girder inspection and …

Autonomous Wall-Climbing Robots For Inspection And Maintenance Of Concrete Bridges, Jizhong Xiao

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Since 2002, the PI’s group has developed four generations of wall-climbing robots for NDE inspection of civil infrastructure. These robots combine the advantages of aerodynamic attraction and suction to achieve a desirable balance of strong adhesion and high mobility. They don’t require perfect sealing and can thus move on smooth and rough surfaces, such as brick, concrete, stucco, wood, glass, and metal. For example, Rise-Rover uses two drive modules to carry their middle compartment with payload up to 450 N. Ground penetrating radar (GPR)-Rover and Mini GPR-Rover are custom designed to carry a GSSI’s GPR antenna for subsurface defect detection …

Mobile-Manipulating Uavs For Sensor Installation, Bridge Inspection And Maintenance, Paul Oh

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Mobile manipulating UAVs have great potential for bridge inspection and maintenance. Since 2002, the PI has developed UAVs that could fly through in-and-around buildings and tunnels. Collision avoidance in such cluttered near-Earth environments has been a key challenge. The advent of light-weight, computationally powerful cameras led to breakthroughs in SLAM even though SLAM-based autonomous aerial navigation around bridges remains an unsolved problem.

In 2007, the PI integrated a mobile manipulation function into UAVs, greatly extending the capabilities of UAVs from passive survey of environments with cameras to active interaction with environments using limbs. Mobile-manipulating UAVs have since been demonstrated to …