20140313 CSIC Annual Lecture - Prof Bill Spencer: Assessing Complex Structures

This video shows the sensitivity and real-time monitoring capabilities of a fibre optic sensing system installed on a steel railway bridge, which is being constructed as part of major upgrade works to relieve the last bottleneck on the West Coast Main Line near Norton Bridge. The fibre optic monitoring system is being installed to monitor the dynamic response of the bridge under live loads including high speed trains and heavy freight and is shown here operating under excitation provided by a member of the CSIC team, Jason Shardelow. Acknowledgements: This research was funded by the EPSRC and Innovate UK through the CSIC Innovation and Knowledge Centre (EPSRC grant reference number EP/L010917/1), and support for the project provided by industry partners Laing O'Rourke, Atkins, Network Rail and VolkerRail through the Staffordshire Alliance is gratefully acknowledged.

A fascinating time-lapse video marks a first for CSIC PhD student Mehdi Alhaddad who has successfully captured photogrammetric monitoring inside one of London’s busiest underground tunnels.

Professor Robert Mair in conversation with CSIC’s International Advisory Group’s Professor Bill Spencer, Director of Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory, University of Illinois, discussing his work in infrastructure monitoring, including the world-record holding Jindo Bridge, South Korea, which features the highest number of sensors on a single piece of infrastructure. Prof Spencer describes his current work addressing the critical needs of the railroad industry using wireless sensor system monitoring in the USA.

The 2014 CSIC Lecture will highlight some of the leaps that have been made in testing and analysing critical structural components. Successful projects presented by Professor Spencer illustrate recent advances and innovations, and point towards future challenges and opportunities.

The Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (www.centreforsmartinfrastructure.com) presents the inaugural CSIC Lecture. The lecture explains why hurricanes (Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy), earthquakes (Canterbury Earthquake Sequence and Tohoku) and tsunamis (Tohoku) require a fundamental re-thinking of the way we evaluate the risks of extreme events, as well as define and protect critical infrastructure. Examples of critical infrastructure at risk are discussed with respect to earthquake effects on the water supply of Southern California and hurricane effects on New York City. Selective lessons learned from recent earthquakes are described with respect to mitigation measures. To address the need for protection against rare, high consequence events with limited financial resources, a strategy for improving infrastructure resilience is proposed.

Before delivering the inaugural CSIC Lecture on 17 Jan 2013, Prof Tom O'Rourke of Cornell University was interviewed by Prof Robert Mair for a more personal take on his lecture 'The New Normal for Natural Disasters'.