ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Monitoring technologies offer great potential to address the aging infrastructure problem and will likely bring with them a new wave of innovations across the design, construction, and management of civil infrastructure. To best leverage this potential, several considerations and actions must be taken that are in contrast to how monitoring is currently most often employed. Instead of a bottom-up reaction to specific deficiency, a top-down approach to the development of monitoring systems within a life-cycle context is necessary. Such an approach requires the adoption of methods and metrics suited for probabilistic data and capable of quantifying the benefit of increased levels of safety over time. It must also be considered that the design, management, and use of civil infrastructure involves a unique composition of interested parties that may compete for resources or have conflicting interests although they share the same goal of safe and efficient structures. To ensure the best use of limited resources, common metrics, methodologies, and means of communication must be agreed upon. Despite the pressing need for new innovations, the integration of structural health monitoring will likely be incremental. As such, how these technologies can benefit existing methods while serving as a catalyst for future change is of interest.
