Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) sometimes called CSHM (Civil Structural Health Monitoring) is an effective tool to improve the understanding of existing building and civil engineering structures.
The use of advanced measurement technology to assess the condition of existing buildings and structures or to analyze their behavior—for example, in connection with overload, construction defects, or design errors—in the context of condition assessments—has increased significantly over the past 10 years. This approach provides highly valuable information for assessing safety and functionality. Measurements are also used to assess changes over time, such as whether cracks are increasing in size. It is also possible to assess a structure’s stiffness through measurements, which then directly serves as a measure of cracking or other forms of weakening.
In this area we offer:
- Inspections
- Supervision
- Instrumentation and measurement
- Evaluation of measurement data
- Functional checks
- Verifications by testing
We do this through complete measurement systems, wireless or wired, installed on site, local data collection or with remote monitoring. Measurements are also performed in real time.
Instrumentation and measurement
Instrumentation and measurement can be performed on most building and civil engineering structures, most commonly on larger structures such as chimneys, bridges and dams, but also monitoring of buildings in connection with blasting work or registration of loads, crack development and temperature measurements can be carried out. Although we mainly measure on concrete structures, the same technique can of course be used on steel and wooden structures.
Most common is registration of:
- Deformations and displacements
- Straightening
- Movements (accelerations)
- temperature
- Load
For example, it is possible to measure how much cracks move with load and temperature, how much a bridge bends under load, the natural frequency of a structure, etc.
Evaluation of measurement data
Before installing measurement systems, the site has normally been analyzed. This is to know where to place sensors and further which measurement data to use in the analysis. The analysis can in some cases be performed with analytical methods, otherwise FE analysis. Sometimes trigger values are linked to the measurement, i.e. a level that requires extra attention or, in the worst case, a stop of traffic or production.