NICTA solution signals bridge safety boost for NSW RTA

Beverley Head
Tuesday, 18 August 2009 08:52

IT Industry - Market

The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority is working with national ICT research group NICTA to develop a wireless system which will allow lifecycle structural monitoring of hundreds of the State’s bridges to begin three years from now.  

Traditionally bridges’ structural health is monitored, often on an annual or bi-annual schedule, by RTA crews, which travel to a bridge, divert traffic, and then wire up a maximum of eight strain gauges to collect data which can then be analysed back at the ranch.

The first trial of a wireless system linking permanently mounted strain gauges connected to a central monitoring system began this month on a bridge over the Parramatta River in Sydney’s west. NICTA expects the full blown test bed to be operational by the end of October.

Eventually the RTA hopes to be able to place up to 200 strain gauges on a bridge, with data sent back wirelessly and continuously, allowing lifecycle monitoring of the structure, according to Phil Mallon, manager of the RTA’s Intelligent Transport Systems Project.

He said that Phase One of the trial had already shown that the wireless sensors could more economically perform the job that human crews currently carry out. The next phase would involve shrinking the packaging and costs so that there could be “widespread deployment and retrofit” of the technology on bridges across the State.

Mallon said that the need for lifecycle monitoring was being thrown into sharp relief by “Climate change, as the chemistry of corrosion is changing.” Although the RTA was already reviewing the cathodic protection of structures near salt water, the composition of which was altering as temperatures rose, it would be useful to have improved data about the overall health of bridge structures and the condition of concrete in particular as climate changed.

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