Sensors, Wireless Tech Help States Monitor Troubled Bridges
Today, 73 percent of U.S. road traffic and 90 percent of truck traffic travels over state-owned bridges. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimates that nearly one in four of those bridges needs repairs, and it would cost $140 billion to repair all of them. The average age of America’s bridges is 43 years.
Traditionally, visual inspections by technicians have formed the basis of U.S. spending on bridge infrastructure — but it’s an imperfect system.
But structural monitoring utilizing highly accurate sensing devices can enable objective, precise and timely performance data on the condition of bridges. Using technology-based monitoring, a state can install a suite of sensors on a bridge or other structure to monitor its structural integrity either once or on a continual basis. Sensor placement is determined by engineers, and data from the structure is collected and sent to a secure data center for analysis.
Read more in Government Technology
