Britain’s built environment is undergoing rapid change. The current shortage of housing in some parts of the country threatens to inhibit economic growth, so plans are afoot to build hundreds of thousands of new homes in the South of England. London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympics will see large swathes of East London regenerated with improved transport links, housing and public amenities. Meanwhile, civil engineers are struggling to maintain an ageing infrastructure of tunnels, bridges, pipelines – often constructed more than half a century ago and deteriorating under the pressures of modern demand.

The Construction industry underpins the economy, accounting for around 20% of GDP. Virtually every commercial activity depends to some extent on its products, so the Cambridge-MIT Institute has joined with Salford University to establish a cross-sector forum for some of the Construction industry’s largest clients, to exchange expertise and thereby improve the efficiency of the building procurement process. Emerging technologies being developed in university labs could help civil engineers monitor and maintain our critical infrastructure, so the Cambridge-MIT Institute funded a group of researchers who are working with construction companies to develop and test innovative new wireless sensors.

More than just Bricks and Mortar

Traditionally, the Construction industry has not been as engaged with research and development as other sectors. In order to address this, the Cambridge-MIT Institute has joined with Salford University to convene the 21st Century Construction Group - a community of large clients of the Construction industry to improve existing business practices and identify potential areas for research and development. It’s still early days for the group, but they have already formed an “action cluster” on Carbon Management which will address ways to reduce the emissions footprint of new buildings and are currently looking into establishing a cluster to examine the potential benefits of prefabrication.

Sounds from the Underground

Failure to monitor, manage and maintain critical infrastructure such as tunnels, pipelines, roads, bridges, buildings and reservoirs can have catastrophic results. Despite the vital importance of monitoring the condition of critical infrastructure, access problems can often hamper assessment efforts. Recent advances in communications technology have opened up the possibility of replacing manual checks with embedded networks of wireless sensors, capable of transmitting real time data on the infrastructure’s condition, regardless of its accessibility.

In 2003, the Cambridge-MIT Institute brought together a transatlantic community of pioneering researchers at Cambridge University and MIT, who work with industrial partners to develop and test innovative new sensor systems for monitoring infrastructure - both above and below ground. Called Smart Infrastructure, this group have worked with industry partners including Thames Water, Network Rail, Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Intel and the US based Boston Water Company. As well as working in the field with industrial partners, Smart Infrastructure is also developing emerging sensor technologies, such as Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). Thinner than a human hair, these MEMS devices are capable of detecting minute changes in their environment, and have astonishingly low power consumption. For example, the new strain sensor being developed by Smart Infrastructure is highly accurate and uses 60 billion times less power than a conventional 60W light bulb.

The critical importance of the group’s work was recently recognised by a £1.4 million grant from the EPSRC. The funding will allow the group to collaborate with Imperial College London, examining three potential application areas for Smart Infrastructure systems: water supply systems, tunnels and bridges.

CASE STUDY: SMART INFRASTRUCTURE 

The Cambridge-MIT Institute has convened and funded research with a consideration of use. This commitment has enabled mutually beneficial relationships to develop between our research projects and a diverse range of industrial partners. Keith Bowers is Associate Director at Arup and Senior Tunnel Design Manager for Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) - one of the UK’s biggest engineering projects, employing over 8,000 workers, and costing £5.2bn. “We’ve had a long running connection to the Smart Infrastructure group,” said Keith. “A big payback for working with the research team is that we get access to the latest technology and, in return, they get great field trial opportunities.”

In a CTRL field trial, Smart Infrastructure’s fibre optic sensor ran around the circumference of the existing Thameslink tunnel, measuring changes in shape as the new tunnel was dug underneath. The Smart Infrastructure device ran alongside four other monitoring systems already used by CTRL to monitor critical aspects of the structure.

“The Smart Infrastructure prototype compared extremely well to our other systems and provided us with high quality information on a new set of characteristics,” said Keith. “We work in a potentially high risk game – tunneling under existing roads, houses, tunnels and bridges – so we can justify using the best available technology. The wider our portfolio of devices, the better our ability to deal with every eventuality and ensure the work is delivered safely.”

“As a research project, it’s vital that the technologies we develop meet the demands of end users, like the Channel Tunnel Rail Link,” said Dr. Peter Bennett, Project Manager for Smart Infrastructure. “Smart Infrastructure is going to continue to work with our industrial partners to bring on emerging technologies, and get that new technology out of the lab and into the field.”