Automation in Construction

UNDERGROUND SENSING

APPLICATION OF WIRELESS
SENSOR NETWORK TO ANALYZE
CONDITION OF FOUNDATION OF
PREBUILT STRUCTURES

Prepared By:
Binuja Ghising
School of Civil Engineering and mechanics
Background
Foundation is the most important part of the building needs adequate attention For a Failure in
foundation is one of the critical kind of failure in a structure. After certain years of construction a
structure is subjected to different factors that can intrigue failure in the foundation. Liquefaction of
soil, construction of other superstructures on the side, earthquake, rise in ground water level etc are
few of the causes .

There can be several drawbacks of failure of foundation. Either the structure will be unworthy of use
or the reconstruction or repair work must be undertaken which might be highly uneconomic. To
avoid this scenario checking upon the condition of foundation on recurring way in certain interval of
time is necessary. Prebuilt building especially after a few years need to be rechecked and ascertain to
be well

This is not an easy job.

From long ago, one of the most commonly implemented measure taken to check to underground
condition is : Create small exploratory, demolished openings to expose the internal reinforcement
at areas of the framing not susceptible to removal of small amounts of material. This approach can
sometimes enable the determination of existing reinforcing in large areas surrounding the exploratory
opening. So the opening is closed again after the assessment. This method might be suitable for small
buildings with small depth of foundation. For superstructures, this is not suitable because the depth of
the buildings is very large.

Another impressive method is Parallel Seismic Method. This method requires impacting the
foundation with an instrumented hammer, and inserting a hydrophone receiver into a specially
installed hole adjacent to the foundation. The hammer impact generates a stress wave that travels
down the foundation and transmitted through the surrounding soil to the hydrophone. By examining
the arrival times of these transmitted waves, it may be possible to detect the bottom of the
foundation.

Over the years different technologies have been developed in order to enhance development
underground. We have humongous network of train metros running underground. We have optical
fibers laid all over the ground to enhance telecommunication. We control the condition of
underground mines from top of a tower.

Now is the time to bring all these technologies to use in Civil Engineering as well.
Literature Review:

Many attempts have been made to automate the assessment of foundation of structures. While lots of
technologies have been deployed to enhance underground sensing not much has been brought to use
in civil engineering.

The necessity for automating the process of condition assessment of geo-structures or to monitor the
behavior of foundations, soils, embankments, and structures is being required more and more on
many projects. 

The main motives fueling the trend toward increased implementation underground monitoring
systems are the need for structural condition monitoring of existing and ageing structures and the
necessity for understanding of complex designs through performance monitoring of new structures.
This necessity to automate underground sensing is sustained by rapid progress in research and
technology development on sensors and communications.

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) refers to a network of small, low-power devices that can sense and
communicate information about their environment. WSNs are conceivable for various applications
with different spatial deployments that range from being very sparse to very dense by getting
embedded in physical environments. The battery powered wireless sensor nodes are capable of
gathering different types of information, learn from this information and make decisions in real time.
These systems share the same goal of detecting interesting events in an unknown environment over a
period of time. New wireless communication devices have drawn attention due to technologies like
sensing capabilities, communication protocols and energy harvesting and embedded systems.

There can be various usage of wireless sensor network The recent inclination toward new wireless
communication devices and necessity to automate things up has resulted in real-time applications in
the field of civilian and industrial applications such as environment/habitat monitoring, acoustic
detection, seismic detection, nuclear reactor controlling, fire detection etc.

Beside laying up sensors underground and depending upon optical fibers and wireless sensor
networks, there is another effective means of assessment of foundation. That is remote sensing.
Remote sensing is more suitable for assessing the ground conditions after earthquakes or any other
natural calamities. The general application areas in which remote sensing has been used to document
the geotechnical effects of earthquakes are documenting the locations of earthquake damage and
damage patterns, developing three-dimensional digital elevation models of failure geometries, and
measuring ground movements. But still remote sensing hasn’t been brought to much of use in
assessing a damaged foundation despite of being very likely implacable.
Objectives
The objective of this report will be to automate underground sensing. The wireless sensor networks
will be implied in order to gather information from inside of the ground. The sensors would provide
knowledge and information regarding the condition of the foundation. Earthquake and other factors
can heavily impact on the condition of foundation. Similarly, rise in ground water table, wind load ,
precipitation, construction of the large infrastructure on sides etc can also cause deterioration of
structures. Primitive and old measures like digging a hole to check upon condition of foundation is
still existing whereas modern technique like evaluation using aerial imager an UAV with th idea of
Remote sensing is also implied in checking upon underground condition. So, the major objective of
this research would be implying Underground sensor network in order to find out the condition of
underground foundations.
Methodology:
The idea of implementing the wireless sensor network in order to get information from underground
is extracted from a project whose objective was to use wireless sensor network to monitor leak
detection in underground pipes. The battery powered wireless sensor nodes are capable of gathering
different types of information, learn from this information and make decisions in real time. These
systems share the same goal of detecting interesting events in an unknown environment over a period
of time. Hence, this idea would be perfect to understand the underground condition of foundation.

This approach will enable the sensor network to use machine learning techniques to report the central
control about problem detection and its severity.
To detect breaking or weathering of foundation materials using acoustic emission, acoustic signal is
measured by sensors placed outside the foundation. The collected measurements are used to create an
acoustic map of the foundation so a weathering can be detected by analyzing its behavior.
Schedule

Plan Duratio Weeks

start n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
week
Interpretation 1 1

Preliminary 2 1
studies

Literature 3 2
review

Wireless Sensor 5 1
Network review

Machine 6 2
learning review

Laying of 8 1
sensors

Analyzing of 9 2
data using
Machine
learning
Comments
Underground sensing technology to understand the condition and usability of the foundation of an
existing infrastructure is a necessity. The primitive measures of digging hole to find out what’s going
on the inside is outdated. Hence it is necessary to automate the process. While there are many other
effective measures such as remote sensing this method can be equally effective. Wireless sensor
network with machine learning will not only provide automation approach but also open up door for
other researches.

This method can still have some limitations. There might be error in reading the data. Or, there might
be underestimating of the condition of severity of the weathering in a foundation. Likewise, another
limitation would be experts in Machine Language can only interpret the data from the sensors. And,
the major drawback in this technique would be, it will be uneconomic. The process of laying down
the Wireless sensor network should be done at the time of construction. It will make the construction
process very expensive and uneconomic.
References:

1. WML: Wireless Sensor Network based Machine Learning for Leakage Detection and Size
Estimation. Sidra Rashid*, Usman Akram¹, Shoab A. Khan¹. *College of Electrical &
Mechanical Engineering (CE&ME), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST),
Islamabad, Pakistan.
2. Geotechnical Risk Management Concept for Intelligent Deep Mines. R.K. Mishra*, M.
Janiszewski, L.K.T. Uotinen, M. Szydlowska, T. Siren, M. Rinne. Aalto University, School of
Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Rakentajanaukio 4,00076 AALTO,Espoo,
Finland.
3. Remotesensing for geotechnical earthquake reconnaissance. Ellen M.Rathje*, KevinFranke¹.
*Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas, Austin,
TX 78712, USA., ¹Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Brigham Young
University, Provo, UT 84602, USA.
4. Underground Sensing {Chapter 2 – Acoustic, Electromagnetic and Optical Sensing and
Monitoring Methods. Wen Xiao, Xiaosu Yi, Feng Pan, Rui Li, Tian Xia}.
5. Underground Sensing {Chapter 3 – Geotechnical Underground Sensing and Monitoring.
Magued Iskander.}
6. Underground Sensing {Chapter 6 – Fiber-Optic Underground Sensor Networks. Kenichi
Soga, Cedric Kechavarzi, Loizos Pelecanos, Nicholas de Battista, Michael Williamson, Chang
Ye Gue, Vanessa Di Murro, Mohammed Elshafie, David Monzón-Hernández Sr., Erika
Bustos.}