Displacement monitoring in civil and industrial work structures

New and innovative aspects

Being able to monitor movements in large structures, such as bridges for road and / or rail traffic, among others, is essential to know their status and define in a more efficient and economical way the maintenance actions to be carried out to maintain the maximum levels of safety by structural aging processes with optimal resource consumption. The technical problem to be solved is how to measure, accurately and economically, the movements experienced by a construction structure.

The proposed solution, which is more efficient and less costly than it is currently available, allows obtaining very useful information on the state of structures, in order to be able to design structural maintenance tasks more efficiently and thus avoid catastrophic damage to them.

Main advantages of its use

• Continuous monitoring of movements over time.
• High precision of displacement measurement.
• Low cost of production and installation.
• Sensors located so that the environmental and lighting conditions are favorable.
• Real-time data analysis.

Specifications

The displacement meter has a measurement set with a fixed reference and another with a moving reference. Each of said measurement assemblies includes at least one target element and a laser displacement transducer pointed towards said target element. The laser displacement transducer is adapted to measure distance variations with respect to the corresponding target element, where said distance variations are generated by vertical movements in the constructive structure to be monitored. The device is characterized in that the target element and the laser displacement transducer are arranged on the constructive structure, where the target element is the fixed reference and the laser displacement transducer is the mobile reference.

The installation of the sensors is carried out by specialized personnel, in collaboration with the personnel involved in these functions of the contracting company. The tests and monitoring take place on site, with specialized personnel from the University of Burgos in charge of carrying out the entire process traveling to the site.

Applications

• Large-scale civil works structures, such as bridges for road and / or rail traffic.
• Industrial structures.

Intellectual property status

Protected by patent P201830539

Desired business relationship

Commercial Agreement, License Agreement, Technical Cooperation: further development; Technical Cooperation: testing new applications; Technical Cooperation: adaptation to specific needs.