Augmented Reality in Dam Monitoring

Nuno Filipe Verdelho Trindade

Key information

Authors:

Nuno Filipe Verdelho Trindade (Nuno Verdelho Trindade)

Supervisors:

Alfredo Manuel Dos Santos Ferreira Júnior (Alfredo Ferreira); Sérgio Bruno Martins de Oliveira (Sérgio Bruno Martins de Oliveira)

Published in

November 5, 2018

Abstract

The construction industry has shown, over recent years, an increased interest in technologies such as Augmented Reality, as a mean to optimize its processes. This work explores the application of Augmented Reality to the inspection and monitoring of large Civil Engineering structures, namely of dams. It presents and discusses related work regarding the use of Augmented Reality in Engineering, Architecture and Construction. Furthermore, it proposes an approach to dam safety control, using Augmented Reality, focused on offering new visualization possibilities, that are not accessible through traditional means. In that scope it depicts the specification and development of a proof-of-concept prototype that allows the visualization, in-situ, of relevant structural health monitoring information, in an Augmented Reality environment. In particular, it offers Civil Engineers and Observation Technicians a mean to visualize, superimposed to the Cabril Dam (the case study covered by this project), the network of sensors situated in the downstream face and the interior of the structure, as well as the evolution of the values registered in each sensor. A preliminary evaluation, aimed at validating the proposed approach, shows that Augmented Reality technologies can be efficiently used in dam safety control.