• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.233-257
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• 2016

This paper provides an overview on development of long-span bridges monitoring in Japan, with emphasis on monitoring strategies, types of monitoring system, and effective utilization of monitoring data. Because of severe environment condition such as high seismic activity and strong wind, bridge monitoring systems in Japan historically put more emphasis on structural evaluation against extreme events. Monitoring data were used to verify design assumptions, update specifications, and facilitate the efficacy of vibration control system. These were among the first objectives of instrumentation of long-span bridges in a framework of monitoring system in Japan. Later, monitoring systems were also utilized to evaluate structural performance under various environment and loading conditions, and to detect the possible structural deterioration over the age of structures. Monitoring systems are also employed as the basis of investigation and decision making for structural repair and/or retrofit when required. More recent interest has been to further extend application of monitoring to facilitate operation and maintenance, through rationalization of risk and asset management by utilizing monitoring data. The paper describes strategies and several examples of monitoring system and lessons learned from structural monitoring of long-span bridges in Japan.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.173-191
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• 2009

Civil infrastructures are always subjected to various types of hazard and deterioration. These conditions require systematic efforts to assess the exposure and vulnerability of infrastructure, as well as producing strategic countermeasures to reduce the risks. This paper describes the needs for and concept of advanced sensor technologies for risk assessment of civil infrastructure in Japan. Backgrounds of the infrastructure problems such as natural disasters, difficult environment, limited resource for maintenance, and increasing requirement for safety are discussed. The paper presents a concept of risk assessment, which is defined as a combination of hazard and structural vulnerability assessment. An overview of current practices and research activities toward implementing the concept is presented. This includes implementation of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems for environment and natural disaster prevention, improvement of stock management, and prevention of structural failure.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.91-114
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• 2016

In this paper, recent research trends and activities on structural health monitoring (SHM) of civil infrastructure in Korea are reviewed. Recently, there has been increasing need for adopting smart sensing technologies to SHM, so this review focuses on smart sensing, monitoring, and assessment for civil infrastructure. Firstly, the research activities on smart sensor technology is reviewed including optical fiber sensors, piezoelectric sensors, wireless smart sensors, and vision-based sensing system. Then, a brief overview is given to the recent advances in smart monitoring and assessment techniques such as vibration-based global monitoring techniques, local monitoring with piezoelectric materials, decentralized monitoring techniques for wireless sensors, wireless power supply and energy harvest. Finally, recent joint SHM activities on several test beds in Korea are discussed to share the up-to-date information and to promote the smart sensors and monitoring technologies for applications to civil infrastructure. It includes a Korea-US joint research on test bridges of the Korea Expressway Corporation (KEC), a Korea-US-Japan joint research on Jindo cable-stayed bridge, and a comparative study for cable tension measurement techniques on Hwamyung cable-stayed bridge, and a campaign test for displacement measurement techniques on Sorok suspension bridge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.619-639
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• 2010

There is increasing interest in using structural monitoring as a cost effective way of managing risks once an area of concern has been identified. However, it is challenging to deploy an effective, reliable, large-scale, long-term and real-time monitoring system in an underground railway environment (subway / metro). The use of wireless sensor technology allows for rapid deployment of a monitoring scheme and thus has significant potential benefits as the time available for access is often severely limited. This paper identifies the critical factors that should be considered in the design of a wireless sensor network, including the availability of electrical power and communications networks. Various issues facing underground deployment of wireless sensor networks will also be discussed, in particular for two field case studies involving networks deployed for structural monitoring in the Prague Metro and the London Underground. The paper describes the network design, the radio propagation, the network topology as well as the practical issues involved in deploying a wireless sensor network in these two tunnels.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.285-299
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• 2020

Long term structural health monitoring has gained wide attention among civil engineers in recent years due to the scale and severity of infrastructure deterioration. Establishing effective damage indicators and proposing enhanced monitoring methods are of great interests to the engineering practices. In the case of bridge health monitoring, long term structural vibration measurement has been acknowledged to be quite useful and utilized in the planning of maintenance works. Previous researches are majorly concentrated on linear time series models for the measurement, whereas nonlinear dependences among the measurement are not carefully considered. In this paper, a new bridge health monitoring method is proposed based on the use of long term vibration measurement. A combination of the fundamental ARMA model and copula theory is investigated for the first time in detecting bridge structural damages. The concept is applied to a real engineering practice in Japan. The efficiency and accuracy of the copula based damage indicator is analyzed and compared in different window sizes. The performance of the copula based indicator is discussed based on the damage detection rate between the intact structural condition and the damaged structural condition.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.207-216
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• 2017

Installing accelerometers in a building is an effective way to know how the building shakes when an earthquake happens. In this paper, we will introduce an example of an analysis that captures the acceleration reduction effect of the vibration damping device using data observed by the accelerometer at Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in Minato-ku, Tokyo, during the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. Moreover, as the latest effort, from the standpoint of a developer who builds and operates a number of high-rise buildings in Japan, where frequent earthquakes are experienced, a system for real-time processing of accelerometer data was developed to instantly diagnose the degree of damage to high-rise buildings, and the actual system of earthquake damage health monitoring is discussed. This system is currently in operation in twelve high-rise buildings including Roppongi Hills Mori Tower.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.27-37
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• 2015

Structural health monitoring is becoming more and more important in the domain of civil engineering as a proper mean to increase and maintain the safety, especially in the land of earthquakes like Japan. In many civil structures, the deformations are the most relevant parameter to be monitored. In this context, a monitoring technology based on the use of long-gage fiber optic deformation sensor, SOFO is being applied to a 33-floors tall building in Tokyo. Sensors were installed on the $2^{nd}$ floor's steel columns of the building on May 2005 in the early stage of the construction. The installed SOFO sensors were dynamic compatible ones which enable both static and dynamic measurements. The monitoring is to be performed during the whole lifespan of the building. During the construction, static deformations of the columns had been measured on a regular basis using a reading unit for static measurement and dynamic deformation measurements were occasionally conducted using a reading unit for dynamic measurement. The building was completed on August 2006. After the completion, static and dynamic deformation measurements have been continuing. This paper describes a health monitoring technology, SOFO system which is applicable to high-rise buildings and monitoring results of a 33-floors tall building in Tokyo from May 2005 to October 2010.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.38.4-39
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• 2015

We have been monitoring Sgr A*, the radio source at the center of our galaxy, continuously since G2 encounter was predicted. KaVA is a powerful High resolution imaging array at K and Q band, and it has a excellent uv-coverage for Sgr A*. Together with 1-Gbps recording, our observations have provided high-quality images of Sgr A* at Q-band. Our images reveal a scatter-broadened, elliptical Gaussian structure of the source. We found no significant flux or structural variation of Sgr A* in 2013-2014, which is consistent with recent simulations by Kawashima et al. Continuous monitoring in the coming few years would be able to capture the possible flux increase in the source caused by G2, which will lead to better understanding of the accretion process around supermassive black holes.

• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.125-137
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• 2008

FBG (Fiber Bragg Grating) sensors and optical fibers were embedded into CFRP dry preforms before resin impregnation in VaRTM (Vacuum-assisted Resin Transfer Molding). The embedding location was the interface between the skin and the stringer in a CFRP-stiffened panel. The reflection spectra of the FBG sensors monitored the strain and temperature changes during all the molding processes. The internal residual strains of the CFRP panel could be evaluated during both the curing time and the post-curing time. The temperature changes indicated the differences between the dry preform and the outside of the vacuum bagging. After the molding, four-point bending was applied to the panel for the verification of its structural integrity and the sensor capabilities. The optical fibers were then used for the newly-developed PPP-BOTDA (Pulse-PrePump Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis) system. The long-range distributed strain and temperature can be measured by this system, whose spatial resolution is 100 mm. The strain changes from the FBGs and the PPP-BOTDA agreed well with those from the conventional strain gages and FE analysis in the CFRP panel. Therefore, the fiber-optic sensors and its system were very effective for the evaluation of the VaRTM composite structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.17 no.3_4
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• pp.291-302
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• 2004

In this paper, load monitoring technologies using U-shape Magnetoelastic (EM or ME) sensors have been exploited systemically for the first time. The steel rod to be tested is the Japan 7 mm piano steel rod. The load dependence of the magnetic properties of the piano steel rod was manifested. Two experimental designs of U-shape magnetoelastic sensors were introduced, one with double pick-up concentric coils wound on the rod to be tested, the other with pick-up coil on one yoke foot. The former design is used to derive the correlation of the relative permeability with elastic tension, while the latter is aimed to reflect the stress induced magnetic flux variation along the magnetic circuit. Magnetostatic simulations provide interpretations for the yoke foot sensing technology. Tests with double pick-up coils indicate that under proper working points (primary voltages), the relative permeability varies linearly with the axial load for the Japan 7 mm piano steel rod. Tests with pick-up coil on the yoke foot show that the integrated sensing voltage changes quadratically with the load, and error is more acceptable when the working point is high enough.