Aging, deterioration and extreme events like earthquakes and hurricanes can take a toll on roads, bridges and other structures.
Damage and defects are often invisible.To alert the authorities to potential problems and even impending catastrophic failure, the Mumbai Metro One has commissioned the world’s first real-time advanced Structural Health Monitoring System (SHMS) for Asia’s tallest cable-stayed bridge across Western Express Highway (WEH).
The system has been supplied, installed and monitored by an Indian subsidiary of a company from Switzerland, Mageba, a world leader in cable-stayed bridge monitoring systems. It monitors the health of the bridge on a real-time basis.
How it works
The bridge’s surveillance system is an assembly of 25 sophisticated high-class electronic sensors which are imported from Europe and installed at various strategic parts of the bridge for the purpose of continuously measuring and recording critical physical parameters, and consequently assessing the actual conditions of the structure.
The SHMS generates an alarm if any of the determining critical structural parameters are exceeded beyond the threshold. It makes use of natural frequencies of the cable-stayed bridge to provide valuable knowledge about the structural condition.
The ROBO®CONTROL permanent system is equipped with electronic devices — cable accelerometers, tri-axle accelerometers, inclinometers, displacement sensors, laser deflection sensors, strain gauges, structural temperature sensors, wind direction & intensity sensors, air temperature & humidity sensors and a data acquisition system.
The data is dynamically acquired in order to analyse vibrational behaviour. The data so collected is evaluated online and representative results are transmitted to the monitoring server. The data transmission from the monitoring system is realised via Internet technologies. There will be a permanent control room in the WEH Metro Station for this. However, the system can also be accessed digitally from everywhere in the world.
The technology has been designed by France-based Systra, proof-checked by TUV, Germany; the system supply and construction has been done by VSL, and real-time monitoring is carried out by Mageba.
