'Sensing skin' could monitor the health of concrete infrastructure continually and inexpensively
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 - 11:02
in Mathematics & Economics
In 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned the grade "D" to the overall quality of infrastructure in the U.S. and said that ongoing evaluation and maintenance of structures was one of five key areas necessary for improving that grade. Since that time, federal stimulus funds have made it possible for communities to repair some infrastructure, but the field of high-tech, affordable methods for the continual monitoring of structures remains in its infancy. Instead, most evaluation of bridges, dams, schools and other structures is still done by visual inspection, which is slow, expensive, cumbersome and in some cases, dangerous.