Heritage elements, from historic buildings to stone sculptures and panels, stand as key elements in the history of humanity. Unfortunately, the deterioration of both the surface and the interior of these elements is inevitable, endangering the quality and existence of these structures of high historical value in the event of a delay in the implementation of the required maintenance tasks. InfraRed Thermography, IRT, appears as one of the most recent techniques to detect and characterize possible pathologies in structures in their early stages, being very useful for a preventive analysis in heritage elements. This paper presents a methodology for the automatic detection and characterization of one of the most severe and frequent pathologies in heritage structures, moisture, from thermal images. The proposal stands as a demonstration of the potential of the IRT technique for heritage conservation applications, and as a new step towards the automation of the inspection process and optimization of the decision-taking in conservation actions within cultural heritage. For that, two thermal criteria and a semiautomatic image rectification process are implemented as main phases of the methodology, obtaining good results for the detection of moisture zones and accurate area values with regard to the real dimensions of each moisture zone. Specifically, an F-score average of 78%±19% regarding detection performance and a percentage relative error of minimum 4%, and maximum of 12%, referred to the area computation in unit metrics are obtained.
Preservation and maintenance of transport infrastructure is a global concern that affects social and economic development in all countries. During the last decades, there has been a continuous increase in the use of non-destructive testing (NDT) applied to many aspects related to civil engineering field. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) has become an established method of inspection. This paper presents a compilation of works in the frame of the applications of GPR and other NDT methods in the evaluation of transport infrastructures. Published works in roads and pavements, concrete and masonry structures, and tunnel testing are mentioned. It has been demonstrated that such methods have significantly benefited the procedures for inspection and also, successfully solved some of the limitations of traditional methods.
Water content in masonry bridges is a key factor on their conservation, as it affects their structure. But its detection requires the use of non-destructive techniques that do not perturb the actual state of the bridge. Infrared thermography and ground-penetrating radar have proved to be appropriate techniques for the surveying of masonry elements and for detection of moisture areas in different materials, used both independently and combined. These techniques are applied together to the detection and analysis of moisture areas in a historic masonry bridge in order to provide information for subsequent conservation actions.
This Chapter deals with a compilation of published works in the frame of the applications of the GPR for humanitarian assistance and security. The fields of application, in which the technique has experienced more advances, are the detection of mines and unexploded ordnances, as well as the location of underground spaces. Different types of defensive constructions were built throughout history to protect people from natural catastrophes, aerial bombardments and other attacks. Moreover, the use of the GPR technology in rescue operations is considered by including the main contributions in locating human remains or living victims in disaster areas. An overview of the main GPR works in humanitarian missions and their results are therefore mentioned. Specific systems, methodologies and processing algorithms developed in these applications are also analysed. As result, the method has shown significantly benefits when compared to other traditional searching methods.
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