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Smith and Dixon_Accepted_SmIC_27 01 2019.pdf (961.91 kB)

Listening for deterioration and failure: Towards smart geotechnical infrastructure

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journal contribution
posted on 2020-01-30, 09:50 authored by Alister SmithAlister Smith, Neil Dixon
Global change is accelerating the rate of deterioration of geotechnical infrastructure systems. There is an urgent need for monitoring strategies that can be used to assess existing, ageing infrastructure through retrofitting sensors at discrete locations to detect and provide early warning of limit state failures. This paper describes a novel approach for smart geotechnical infrastructure that ‘listens’ to acoustic emission (AE) generated by geotechnical asset deterioration and failure. AE rates generated by geotechnical systems have been proven to be proportional to deformation rates. AE is becoming an accepted monitoring technology for geotechnical applications; however, challenges still exist to develop widely applicable AE interpretation strategies. This paper places AE geotechnical monitoring in a smart infrastructure context and presents: the key factors influencing AE propagation and attenuation in buried structural elements; techniques for quantifying AE parameters; and AE interpretation frameworks for extracting information and knowledge on the deformation and strength behaviour of geotechnical infrastructure systems. AE interpretation strategies for exemplar applications (e.g. slopes, pile foundations and buried pipelines) are developed and demonstrated through element- and large-scale experiments and field trials.

Funding

IAA Community Slope SAFE: Design for Manufacture

Fellowship - Listening to Infrastructure : EP/P012493/1

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Published in

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Smart Infrastructure and Construction

Volume

171

Issue

4

Pages

131 - 143

Publisher

Thomas Telford

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© ICE Publishing

Publisher statement

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Smart Infrastructure and Construction and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1680/jsmic.19.00019

Acceptance date

2020-01-27

Publication date

2020-01-31

Notes

Winner of the Thomas Telford Premium Award for the Best Paper of 2020 in the ICE: Smart Infrastructure and Construction journal.

ISSN

2397-8759

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Alister Smith Deposit date: 28 January 2020

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