A Report on

IOT BASED MONITORING FOR STRUCTURAL HEATLTH

SUBMITEED FROM: SUBMITTED TO:

Team name: Young Scientist 2.0 Aadhar (CESS IOE Pulchowk)
Members:
1. Dinesh Das
2. Prakash Biswakarma
3. Rupesh Kumar Sah
4. Santosh Paudel
5. Satyam Kumar Jha
6. Tanbir Ahmad

COLLEGE NAME: COSMOS COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY

Abstract:
Structures like Buildings, Bridges, Dams, Old Cultural Sites are widely used in our country.
Structural health monitoring is a method of evaluating and monitoring structural health
which can be widely applied in civil engineering sectors due to its ability to respond to
adverse structural changes, improving structural reliability and life cycle management, we
want to apply IoT on Structural health Monitoring as a sensor for civil engineering
applications due to its capability of interacting with the environment. Structural health
Monitoring is an efficient way to safeguard national property along with various advantages,
like maintaining the structures when actually required at proper time and before
destructions, which reduces capital expenditures and increases the life span and improves
public safety in the community. Furthermore, the intention to enhance IoT capability to
handle more functions is also included in the project. In our Project recent issues are
highlighted to emphasize the technology and Structural Health Monitoring potential as an
energy harvester in the near future.

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Table of content page
no.
Introduction 4
Summary 5
IoT 5
STRUCTURAL HEALTH Monitoring
5
Working of Structural Health Monitoring 6
Uses of IoT 7
Our Model Description
8
Device Used 10
Structural Health Monitoring Issues and Challenges
14
Conclusion 15
References 16

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INTRODUCTION:
1. The background:
The need for reliable and timely data in construction and critical
infrastructure management is clear. However, until recently, data collection for
structural health monitoring (SHM) has mainly been a manual exercise where
engineers have to go out in the field to make key measurements. The challenge of
manual data collection is that it’s slow, unreliable and highly inefficient.
All structures, including critical civil infrastructure facilities like bridges and highways,
deteriorate with time. This deterioration is due to various reasons including fatigue
failure caused by repetitive traffic loads, effects of environmental elements, and
extreme events such as an earthquake. If the damages remain undetected, the
structure may have a reduced margin of safety or have serviceability problem.
Consequently, the integrity of the structural systems has big chances of a collapse,
resulting in loss of life and property. Increasing concern about the status of existing
structures, particularly after earthquakes, has motivated numerous studies on
damage detection using various non-destructive evaluation methods.
The idea behind SHM is to collect data from multiple sensors installed on structures
in order to process and understand useful information about the current state of the
structure for maintenance and safety purposes. The ability to monitor and track
critical assets in order to improve operational effectiveness is one of the most
important ways IoT can add value to an asset owner or operator. 

2. The purpose:
1.For Monitoring the Structural Health with IoT Systems for providing safety to
Human Lives.
2. Interrelating IoT with Civil Engineering
3. Getting Structural Health Data in real time
4. To get respond to adverse structural changes, improving structural reliability and
life cycle management
5. For reducing capital expenditures, increasing the life span and improving public
safety
6. To show wide uses of IoT in Buildings, Bridges, Hydropower, Dams, e.t.c Structural
Health
7. To demonstrate water structures interactions.

3. The scope:
1. For those structures which design life period is no longer remaining.

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 2. Structures facing natural disasters frequently again and again.
3. Mega projects like dams and high towers, airports.
4. Most useful for bridge load controlling.
5. Outdated structures.
6. Maintaining cultural, historical structural.

Summary:
IoT:
The internet of things, or IoT, is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and
digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the
ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer
interaction.
An IoT ecosystem consists of web-enabled smart devices that use embedded systems, such as
processors, sensors and communication hardware, to collect, send and act on data they acquire
from their environments. IoT devices share the sensor data they collect by connecting to an IoT
gateway or other edge device where data is either sent to the cloud to be analyzed or analyzed
locally. The devices do most of the work without human intervention, although people can interact
with the devices – for instance, to set them up, give them instructions or access the data.

STRUCTURAL HEALTH Monitoring:

Structural health monitoring (SHM) involves the observation and analysis of a system over time
using periodically sampled response measurements to monitor changes to the material and
geometric properties of engineering structures such as bridges and buildings.
For long term SHM, the output of this process is periodically updated information regarding
the ability of the structure to perform its intended function in light of the inevitable aging and
degradation resulting from operational environments. After extreme events, such as earthquakes or
blast loading, SHM is used for rapid condition screening and aims to provide, in near real time,
reliable information regarding the integrity of the structure.
Measurements may be taken to either directly detect any degradation or damage that may
occur to a system or indirectly by measuring the size and frequency of loads experienced to allow
the state of the system to be predicted.

SHM System’s elements typically include:

System Identification:
Commonly known as Structural Health Assessment (SHA) or SHM, this concept is widely
applied to various forms of infrastructures, especially as countries all over the world enter into an
even greater period of construction of various infrastructures ranging from bridges to skyscrapers.
Especially so when damages to structures are concerned, it is important to note that there are
stages of increasing difficulty that require the knowledge of previous stages, namely:
 Detecting the existence of the damage on the structure
 Locating the damage
 Identifying the types of damage

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  Quantifying the severity of the damage

It is necessary to employ signal processing and statistical classification to convert sensor data
on the infrastructural health status into damage info for assessment, model update, structural
condition assessment, Prediction of remaining service life.

Working Of Structural Health Monitoring:

Operational evaluation:
Operational evaluation attempts to answer four questions regarding the implementation of a
damage identification capability.
1.  What is the life-safety and/or economic justification for performing the SHM?
2. How is damage defined for the system being investigated and, for multiple damage
possibilities, which cases are of the most concern?
3. What are the conditions, both operational and environmental, under which the system to be
monitored functions?
4. What are the limitations on acquiring data in the operational environment?

Operational evaluation begins to set the limitations on what will be monitored and how the
monitoring will be accomplished. This evaluation starts to tailor the damage identification process to
features that are unique to the system being monitored and tries to take advantage of unique
features of the damage that is to be detected.

Data acquisition, normalization and cleansing:

The data acquisition portion of the SHM process involves selecting the excitation methods, the
sensor types, number and locations, and the data acquisition/storage/transmittal hardware. Again,
this process will be application specific. Economic considerations will play a major role in making
these decisions. The intervals at which data should be collected is another consideration that must
be addressed.
Because data can be measured under varying conditions, the ability to normalize the data
becomes very important to the damage identification process. As it applies to SHM, data
normalization is the process of separating changes in sensor reading caused by damage from those
caused by varying operational and environmental conditions. One of the most common procedures
is to normalize the measured responses by the measured inputs. It is necessary to make the
appropriate measurements such that these sources can be statistically quantified. Variability can
arise from changing environmental and test conditions, changes in the data reduction process, and
unit-to-unit inconsistencies.

Feature extraction and data compression:

The area of the SHM process that receives the most attention in the technical literature is the
identification of data features that allows one to distinguish between the undamaged and damaged
structure. Inherent in this feature selection process is the condensation of the data. The best
features for damage identification are, again, application specific.

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One of the most common feature extraction methods is based on correlating measured system
response quantities, such a vibration amplitude or frequency, with the first-hand observations of the
degrading system. Another method of developing features for damage identification is to apply
engineered flaws, similar to ones expected in actual operating conditions, to systems and develop an
initial understanding of the parameters that are sensitive to the expected damage. The flawed
system can also be used to validate that the diagnostic measurements are sensitive enough to
distinguish between features identified from the undamaged and damaged system. The use of
analytical tools such as experimentally-validated finite element models can be a great asset in this
process. In many cases the analytical tools are used to perform numerical experiments where the
flaws are introduced through computer simulation. Damage accumulation testing, during which
significant structural components of the system under study are degraded by subjecting them to
realistic loading conditions, can also be used to identify appropriate features. This process may
involve induced-damage testing, fatigue testing, corrosion growth, or temperature cycling to
accumulate certain types of damage in an accelerated fashion.

Use of IoT:
IoT is a concept of exposing data generated from points of operational interest. At the basic
level, it seeks to improve situational awareness by enabling visualization of important field
parameters. Structural health monitoring (SHM) is the process of monitoring or assessing the
condition of a structure in order to gather information on its current state by tracking variables like
vibration, strain, stress and other physical phenomena, responses and conditions. It seeks to assist in
non-destructive evaluations aimed to detect location and extent of damage, calculate the remaining
life of an asset and predict upcoming accidents.
the engineering structural health concept encompasses four distinct subsets:
a. Sensor allocation and measurements
b. Structural identification,
c. Damage or degradation detection, and
d. Decision making.
A brief idea about different damage detection techniques and the theoretical background of global
damage detection methods are presented in the following sections.
 Global Versus Local Damage Detection
Damage detection is a challenging problem that is under vigorous investigation by
numerous research groups using a variety of analytical and experimental techniques.
Damage detection techniques may be classified as global or local. Global methods attempt
to simultaneously assess the condition of the whole structure, whereas local methods
focus non-destructive evaluation (NDE) tools on specific structural components. Among
the numerous considerations which influence the choice and effectiveness of a suitable
health monitoring method are:
(1) the level of damage and deterioration concern
(2) the types of sensors used
(3) the degree of measurement noise pollution
(4) the degree of a priori information about the condition of the structure, etc., Nakamura
et al. (1998). Periodic inspection of structures is essential in most cases. Structures
are generally rated and monitored once a year or once in several years.

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  Damage Detection Using Conventional Methods
Current damage detection methods are either visual inspection or localized
experimental methods such as acoustic emission, ultrasonic methods, etc. All of these
experimental techniques require that the vicinity of damage is already. Initially, non-
destructive testing techniques were introduced in civil engineering during the 40's. The
principal need of the engineers was the in-situ determination of the homogeneity and the
compressive strength of fresh concrete to be able, for example, to remove the formworks.
The majority of these techniques (rebound hammer, pull-out test, etc.) is standardized,
ACI (1995), and is based on the measurement of the surface hardness of the concrete.
With the progressive ageing of the structures, the needs of the engineers evolved to the
search for tools allowing the estimation of the mechanical properties of old materials, as
well as the detection and the characterization of hidden defects. This request was at the
origin of the appearance of many investigation techniques in the construction industry,
and this from the 70's. The available localized experimental methods being used include:
acoustic emission or ultrasonic methods, electro-magnetic field methods, X-ray,
radiographs, eddy current methods, and thermal field methods, (1996).
Many papers concerned with different non-destructive testing methods and their
applications in civil engineering.
Since the reinforced concrete is a heterogeneous material, concrete structures have many
problems more than metallic materials. Indeed, mechanical properties of various metals
and metal alloys are generally reproducible, and the problems encountered are generally
caused by cracks.
Convetional tests were not much accurate. It doesn’t give high accuracy than iot.
Iot gives real time monitoring data to the users or owner so that they can interpret or
know the performance of their building as performance is directly related with the health
of structure.

Our Model Description:

1) Building Structure:
The Building Structure is made of Bamboo representing as Beams and
Columns. The plyboard is attached as the floor. The bamboo bracing is provided in
the two sides of the structure. Accelerometer sensor is used in the structure for the
determination of Sesmic waves with and without bracing.

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 Figure 1Building Structure Model

2) Bridge:
The bridge support is made of steel on both sides and the span is made of
plywood. The load sensor and flex sensors are used in the bridge. the load sensor
detects loading applied at the real time and flex sensors provide deflection in the
bridge span.

Figure 2 Bridge Model

3) AAC Block:
The AAC block is used for knowing the crack occurred in the block by the use
of ultrasonic sensor.

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 Figure 3 AAC Block

4) AESTHETIC Views:
The mountain, the river, the ground, the road and others are placed in the
model.

Devices used:
1. Accelerometer sensor
2. Flex sensor
3. Load cell sensor
4. Ultrasonic sensor
5. Esp32 Wi-Fi model
6. Aurdino

1. Accelerometer sensor:

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 An accelerometer sensor is a tool that measures the acceleration of any body or object
in its instantaneous rest frame.
We have used this device on floor level so as to know the performance of each floor on the
vibration phenomenon used to measure seismic activity.

Fig: accelerometer sensor

Working Principle:
The basic underlying working principle of an accelerometer is such as a dumped mass
on a spring. When acceleration is experienced by this device, the mass gets displaced till the
spring can easily move the mass, with the same rate equal to the acceleration it sensed.
Then this displacement value is used to measure the give the acceleration.
The sensor element consists of a fixed electrode comprised of Si, a working electrode, and
spring. In a state with no acceleration, the distance between the fixed and movable
electrode is the same. When acceleration is applied, the movable electrode is displaced.

2. flex sensor:
A flex sensor or bend sensor is a sensor that measures the amount of deflection or
bending. Usually, the sensor is stuck to the surface, and resistance of sensor element is
varied by bending the surface. We have used this device to check the amount deflection
occur in bridge.

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 Fig: flex sensor
Working mechanism:
A flex sensor uses carbon on a strip of plastic to act like a variable resistor. The
resistance changes by flexing the component. The sensor bends in one direction, the more it
bends, the higher the resistance.

3. Load cell sensor:

A load cell is a transducer which converts force into a measurable electrical output.
We have used this device to identify the quantity of load applied.

Fig: load cell sensor

Working mechanism:
load cells work on the
principle of piezo-resistivity.
When a load/force/stress is
applied to the sensor, it
changes its resistance.

4. Ultrasonic sensor:
An ultrasonic sensor is an electronic device that measures the distance of a target
object by emitting ultrasonic sound waves, and converts the reflected sound into an
electrical signal. Ultrasonic waves travel faster than the speed of audible sound (i.e. the
sound that humans can hear).
We have used this device to check the crack in structure.

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 Fig: ultrasonic sensor
Working mechanism:
Ultrasonic sensors work by sending out a sound wave at a frequency above the range
of human hearing. The transducer of the sensor acts as a microphone to receive and send
the ultrasonic sound.

5. Esp32 wifi model:

ESP32 can perform as a complete standalone system or as a slave device to a host MCU,
reducing communication stack overhead on the main application processor.

fig: esp32 wifi model

6. aurdino board:
Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328P (datasheet). It has 14
digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz
ceramic resonator (CSTCE16M0V53-R0), a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header and a
reset button.

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 Fig: aurdino board

Working mechanism:
It uses three main things to do its job: Inputs: Sensors and switches are connected to the
controller to give it information.

Structural Health Monitoring Issues and challenges:

Large Scale Structures:
The structures like long span bridges and large dams and maintaining or increasing targeted
service
Of life this structure commercially and service point of view are very important. For effectively
Reaching or increasing the design service life of these structures’ the continuous structural health
Monitoring is necessary. The foremost challenge is to develop and demonstrate SHM
technologies
That can be used to monitor structural integrity in service conditions with high reliability and
Durability. Bridges, dams and towers having large scale are mostly difficult or sometime
Impossible to monitor with conventional structural health monitoring techniques. All the steps of
Health monitoring are difficult to execute. Such as from the first step of
 making strategies of selecting location for mounting the instrument,
 to mounting the instrument at selected location.
 acquiring data from the sensors.
 maintaining and checking large number of sensors condition during complete duration of
Health monitoring.
 handling the huge data from its collection to its processing and extracting results from it
condition during complete duration of

Huge Data Produced by Sensors:

Though structure is of large or small scale the data produces by most of the health monitoring
Instruments and sensors are huge due to multiple number of location and continuous monitoring of
the structure. This huge data has to be processed and the most accurate and useful results should be
extracted, data analysis is still key issue

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Conclusion:
Structural health Monitoring is an efficient way to safeguard national property along with
various advantages, like maintaining the structures when actually required at proper time and
before destructions, which reduces capital expenditures and increases the life span and improves
public safety in the community. we applied IoT on Structural health Monitoring as a sensor for
civil engineering applications due to its capability of interacting with the environment.

References:
 Wikipedia

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 Free Encyclopedia
 SAGE Journals

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