Building Structural Health Monitoring

What is Building Structural Health Monitoring?

1

What can be monitored?

  • Historical Monuments
  • High-profile Buildings
  • High-rise
  • Arenas / Stadiums / Roofs

2

What can be measured?

There are a host of options for measuring the changes in a structure. Each project will have its own unique requirements. The structural engineers will assess such requirements for which our experts can then provide the appropriate package.

3

What are the Features and Benefits?

  • Rapid assessment of building’s health
  • Reliable data on actual condition of structure
  • Detect early signs of failure
  • Protect integrity of property and lives
  • Live monitoring
  • Optimise insurance and maintenance costs
  • Assess structure’s safety following a major event
  • Additional credit for your structure
  • Achieve compliance with building codes

4

The most widely used packages for Building Structural HealthMonitoring:

  1. Vibration: Structural health, behaviour and modal analysis, comfort index
  2. Strain: Fatigue and rainflow analysis
  3. Displacement: Joints, cracks and differential settlements of foundations
  4. Tilt: With reference to allowable limits
  5. Environment: Wind speed and direction, humidity and temperature

Analysis Capabilities


A typical setup will provide valuable information about the health of the structure. Thresholds for acceptable changes in the structure could be set to provide automatic notifications. After a natural disaster or heavy construction work around the structure, valuable information about the change in structural behaviour can be provided at an instant. Insurance claims due to any damages to the structures can be settled based on credible evidence.

The justification for Building Structural Health Monitoring is quite clear and speaks for itself. The alternative is visual periodic inspections which is yesterday's technology and is less likely to produce the same features and benefits. High value and complex structures without an advanced monitoring solution are at a risk which can be mitigated quite effectively.

False Economy?
Consider a typical office building with up to 500 people working in it. After a substantial natural or manmade disaster; the building's owners would typically need to have a structural safety survey done before allowing the office workers back in to the building. However, had the proprietor installed a live monitoring system; he would have been able to instantly say whether the safety levels had been breached. What is the cost of the survey? What is the cost of lost time due to 500 office workers being idle?