Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION HANDBOOK 2
All the above mentioned issues are being demonstrated and investigated through a combination of full
scale applications and laboratory tests.
Another important outcome is the interface towards the end-user. It should be both versatile and
simple to use. The different applications involve different types of end-users. For the management of
civil structures the end-user is often highly skilled experts with experience from complicated
structures and complicated links between structure, material and durability. For houses and indoor
climate the end-user is often a person with some technical building background who is responsible for
many housing units at the same time. For moisture and temperature of new concrete the end-user is
contractors who are responsible for the processes on the building site. All of these applications are
being developed under the auspices of SensoByg.
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Conclusions
Wireless sensor systems are being investigated in a Danish R&D project. Different applications are
being demonstrated in full scale. The following applications are expected to become very beneficial to
implement wireless monitoring:
• Control of indoor climate in residential buildings. The risk of poor indoor climate is linked to
the relative humidity of the indoor air combined with temperature. By monitoring over time and
using practical experiences of growth of fungi the indoor climate is assessed and used as an
indicator of indoor air quality.
• Management of civil structures subject to aggressive environmental exposures. Operation and
maintenance surveillance. Critical parts such as edge beams and waterproofing membranes have
large potential for wireless monitoring in order to evaluate the need for repairs and
refurbishment. The monitoring data will be part of the decision making process when
prioritising between different structures. This could lead to better sustainability of our
infrastructure due to a higher utilisation of the materials and exploitation of their full service life
potential.
• Control of moisture and drying out of newly cast concrete. Especially concrete floors to be
covered with moisture sensitive flooring material are important to monitor in order to avoid
moisture damage due to erroneous execution. Conventional moisture control is a lengthy
process and the use of cast-in sensors would make this process much more operational in
practice. Moisture related damage on new buildings is responsible for large costs, which are
likely to be reduced significantly if monitoring is used on a larger scale than at present.
A subject being considered is quality control of large concrete castings. Sensors being able to monitor
and detect honeycombs, entrapped air and segregating concrete during casting could mean a large
quality improvement of concrete structures in general. However, it was decided early on to omit this
subject from the project since the available sensor technology is not advanced enough for this
purpose.
The project has identified several technical challenges, especially concerning installation and design
of sensors to be used in the harsh environment of newly cast concrete. It is recognised that further
development is needed before the right sensor design is available commercially. The key words for
sensor design are price, size and service life. However, it is anticipated that suitable sensors are going
to be available in due time and that the project is helping applications like the ones stated above to
become realised in a not to far future.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the partners in SensoByg. See full list on www.sensobyg.dk. For the
highway bridge monitoring the assistance of Ramboll and the Danish Road Directorate is gratefully
acknowledged.