Smart structures

Abstract

Since a few years, the civil engineering world can see a changing about how to preserve and monitor the structures. Thanks to the system of Smart Structures we can notice the early damages on the structure and anticipate the future. This science is already applied on bridges and now different researches work on buildings, such as the company Neàpolis in Vilanova i la Geltrú. As participators of European Project Semester at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya a feasibility study and cost analysis for the implementation of Smart Structure systems had to be done. This has been an assignment of the innovation agency Neàpolis, which was founded in 2007 by the city council of Vilanova I la Geltrú. The outcome of this project should be a cost-benefit-analysis, which compares the costs to the savings and recommendations for the implementation of sensors in the Sant Antoni church and the Neàpolis building. The research has been done in order to give Neàpolis an indication whether Smart Structures are feasible to put into buildings by lowering maintenance cost and improving the life span of buildings. There is not a known study that is similar to this project, in our knowledge this is the first feasibility study on Smart Structure Systems that has been performed. This is why the research is of importance to the company. Because it has been not possible to gain a great deal of useful information from the internet, the assistance of the supervisors Félix Ruiz Gorrindo and Pau Martí and third parties has been necessary. In this report you can read on the one hand about the way research has been done. First there are pointed out the most important advantages of Smart Structures. Then there are information about the research of sensors and pathologies that could occur in buildings and how they are related to the project. Our supervisors have been given us lectures about civil engineering to explain the different ways of how a building can be constructed. On the other hand you can find information about the planning of the implementation of the Smart Structures in the Neàpolis building and the Parroquia Arciprestal Sant Antoni Abat (Sant Antoni church). The buildings are both located in Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain. After the inspection of both buildings and the transfer of the blueprints we were looking for the best positions for the sensors in the buildings. Therefrom we deduced different concepts for the implementation based on different states of intensities. Relation to these results formulas has been created to show from which point the implementation of Smart Structure systems in buildings is feasible. There are proposed formulas for the feasibility in time as well as formulas for the break-even-point. Also the different parameters are explained in this report. In the end an example of the Neàpolis building was realised, to prove that the proposed formulas are meaningful. With the gathering of all the information a conclusion has been drawn on which recommendations have been given.