The structural monitoring of bridges is complex, expensive and labor-intensive. This is where a new research project from Thuringia comes in. Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau are currently researching how bridge damage can be detected at an early stage in the future. The aim is an intelligent early warning system that detects the smallest changes in the material structure - even before visible damage occurs, said Olivia Treuheit, project manager at the Fraunhofer IDMT.
"We don't want to wait until it's too late to check bridges," said Treuheit. With the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and acoustic sensors, changes to bridge structures such as wear, cracking or loosening are to be detected. While previous acoustic emission methods make damage audible through absorbed vibrations, the Ilmenau team is focusing on airborne noise. These acoustically perceptible signals are generated when vehicles drive over the transitions. Treuheit explained that the AI filters out the ambient and background noise from the recorded audio files.
