Remote Health Monitoring for Asset Management

1 Introduction
A key challenge to managing fixed assets such as bridges and other transportation infrastructure
is monitoring their condition over time. Under typical service conditions, deterioration resulting
from traffic loading and difficult environmental conditions can result in a reduction or loss of
service of a particular asset, or even life threatening and dangerous failures. Extreme events
such as earthquakes and floods present a still greater challenge in that the service condition of the
asset may change abruptly and without warning, leaving managers without key information they
need to respond to the event. The goal of this project was to develop remote health monitoring
technology that will provide managers and owners with timely information on the condition of
civil infrastructure assets. Specifically, the project developed an instrumented pile that could be
installed at a bridge either as part of the original construction or installed post-construction to
monitor conditions at the bridge. The pile was instrumented using a series the thermal sensors to
detect the scour level at a bridge substructure by evaluating which portions of the pile are
embedded in soil and which portions of the pile are exposed. This report documents efforts
made toward meeting these goals.
During the course of the project, a new method was developed to measure temperature profiles
along the length of a pile embedded in the soil adjacent to a highway bridge. A low-cost, rugged
and durable temperature sensor array technology was developed. Significant efforts were
required to develop the necessary technology to manufacture and assemble the temperature
sensor array, and develop supporting instrumentation and software to support remote monitoring
of bridge conditions. Progress was made toward developing a unique instrumentation system
that would enable the long term monitoring of highway bridges using a unique and highly
durable temperature sensor array. A prototype test pile utilizing the newly developed technology
was designed, constructed and implemented at a test site in Columbia, MO.
Manufacturing processes were developed to produce a temperature sensor array that could be
installed in the difficult environment of a highway bridge and be expected to perform adequately
over a long time period. This involved developing a sensor array that would resist corrosion, be
durable enough to be driven into the earth during pile-driving operations, and have the necessary
sensitivity to detect changes in temperatures associated with developing scour. A design for
implementation of the new sensor array technology along the length of a steel H-pile was
developed. A field installation site was selected in Columbia, MO. The pile was installed
successfully and is being monitored remotely at the time of this report.
Project partners included the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) and the
Tennessee Department of Transportation, each of which provided funding to support the project.
MoDOT assumed the project lead State status, organizing the team to provide quarterly progress
meetings held via teleconference. The project team provided progress overviews to the partner
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