S.A.F.E - Structural Analysis And Forecasting Engine

Abstract

Bridges of the modern era face a variety of challenges. Throughout their deployment and life cycle, bridges go through stresses and loads that can seriously damage their structural integrity. None more so than the damages caused by vibrations. These damages include but are not limited to Fatigue Damage, Resonance, Dynamic Amplification, Vibration Induced Displacement, Structural Deterioration and Serviceability issues to name a few. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, these damages lead to 87 to 222 bridges collapse annually in the United States alone. The collapse of these bridges has a domino effect on the regions economy. For instance, the 2007 collapse of I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, MN led to a repair cost of $234 million to rebuild and cost an estimated $130 billion in annual revenue in lost time and fuel due to trade disruptions. The main idea behind our project is to preempt these damages by monitoring the bridge structure continuously via IoTs, and providing timely alerts to circumvent such incidents from occurring regularly. The IoT devices will be accompanied by an ML model that analyzes the collected data and provides the assessment to be viewed on an centralized dashboard. The provided assessments will allow local bodies to perform maintenance on bridges and closely observe their performance under various stress conditions. The solution will be intuitive and easy to deploy, allowing governing bodies to implement it without much hassle. The target users of the product are transportation boards and local development authorities.