Design of a novel dashboard & data visualization tool for the structural health monitoring system of the OPZuid bio-based footbridge structure

Sustainability has become a common criterion in many industries, including construction, and thus, extensive efforts have been done to transform the construction industry, which is one of the industries with the highest carbon footprint, into a more sustainable practice. Concrete and metals, specially steel, are the two most used material categories in constructing structures, and thus, if they can be replaced by greener solutions, a major improvement will be made. Recently, a research project funded by OPZuid, and lead by Technical University of Eindhoven, has focused on replacing concrete and steel structure by using bio-based composite structures. These are mainly construction materials manufactured from bio-fibers such as Hemp, embedded inside a matrix. The current research project aims to design, produce, construct and test bio-based composite structure, and in this attempt, a footbridge has been constructed. Since the bio-based composite materials are a new type of construction material, and their performance is one of the main topics of this OPZuid research project, a novel way has to be designated which can ensure the constant monitoring of the performance and health condition of the constructed structures, including the bio-based footbridge. On the other hand, in the past few decades, many industries have shifted dramatically towards digitalization, and construction industry is one of those industries which is constantly experiencing introduction of smart solutions. One of the main areas which has experienced extreme digitalization efforts, is the structural inspection field. Recently, usage of optical sensors to monitor the structures has become more popular amongst the construction community, where Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) has gained considerable attention and has been proven to be a reliable and accurate source of data acquisition. As a result, based on the need for constant monitoring of the new bio-based footbridge, and the recent developments in the field of FBG sensors, it was decided to use FBG sensors to create a structural health monitoring system for the OPZuid footbridge. In collaboration with Com&Sens, a sensing network with four sensor lines was embedded inside the footbridge which enable sensing temperature at 6 and strain at 42 points within the footbridge. Further, in order to enable general user, e.g. structure inspection manager, etc., to monitor the data acquired from the footbridge, a user-friendly and novel visualization dashboard is needed, which allows monitoring of all sensors in a smooth and rapid manner. The main topic of this thesis, is to design a reliable dashboard, which can perform the following tasks: 1. Acquires live data from footbridge 2. Post-processes the data 3. Calculates certain metrics 4. Visualizes the post-processed values in a user-friendly manner This design project is an important step in order to ensure constant monitoring of the footbridge structure and provide a solid proof of reliable functionality of this structure.