Infrastructure Maintenance

New tool will give large concrete structures what amounts to an ultrasound, finding tiny cracks before they grow

A researcher measures the width of a crack in a reinforced concrete column after testing the strength of the column. A new project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency will develop a field-deployable tool to detect cracks far smaller than this — and inside rather than outside — thick reinforced concrete structures. (Photo: Chris Kiser)

Imagine giving large concrete structures something similar to an ultrasound and getting images so detailed you can see cracks just a tenth of a millimeter long. That level of detail just isn’t possible now. Yet such capability could revolutionize how engineers assess the health of thick reinforced concrete infrastructure like dams and power plants and bridges.

Thursday, May 23, 2019

National group honors research using lasers and AI to automatically assess health of highway pavement and catalog road signs

Georgia Tech and Georgia Department of Transportation researchers have earned an award for their work to automatically detect cracks, ruts and other pavement issues on the state's highways. Their system uses lasers and artificial intelligence to also detect and catalog roadside signs. This image shows an automatically detected pavement rut modeled in 3-D. (Image: James Tsai)

A leading, standards-setting transportation organization has named a project by Georgia Tech and Georgia Department of Transportation researchers one of the year’s most valuable. And the work could save time and money for DOTs around the country.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017
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Map of School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Mason Building, 790 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0355
Phone: 404-894-2201
Fax: 404-894-2278