Integrating BIM and IoT for smart bridge management

Abstract

Considering high risk, long construction period, high construction and maintenance costs, bridge management is asynchronous, unintelligent and inefficient. The purpose of this research is to investigate a new approach with its supporting building information modelling (BIM) and Internet of Things (IoT) tool to enhance the smart management in bridge life cycle. BIM provides detailed geometric and semantic information and IoT contains the management and analysis of the actual condition of the bridge. An example of a super bridge under construction in Xinjiang is used to illustrate the developed system. Results show that the developed system can significantly grasp the quality of the bridge in time, reduce the construction risk and construction period. The developed BIM/IoT-based system is also effective and practical in the quality and risk management among multiple locations, such as smart buildings, smart tunnels, and even smart cities.

Asset Management of Existing Concrete Bridges Using Digital Twins and BIM: a State-of-the-Art Literature Review

“…This should be addressed because many of the technological advances in infrastructure management rely on cloud-based, mobile, and/or portable technology. The BIM can be linked to the BMS using many different methods and tools including Structured Query Language (SQL) statements [60]; C# [60], MATLAB [19,37] or other programming languages; IFC [13,34,43,61,62,63]; or machine learning [11,26,41] and artificial intelligence algorithms [64].…”

“…changes in physical condition or performance indicators [46], mainly using probabilistic methods. However, there have been many advancements in structural analysis using BMS frameworks that could be used to make improvements in this area; examples include the development of automated bridge assessment tools using artificial intelligence algorithms [64] and the combination of BIM with FE models [60,65] and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) [62]. Figure 4 Research on digital twins in construction is less well established than in other sectors such as aerospace [67], but interest in their application is growing rapidly, as demonstrated by the trends shown in Figure 2.…”

Bridge management systems: overview and framework for smart management

“…None of the existing BMS includes geometric representation of bridges [6,17]. A BIM model offers a comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date digital representation of a building, and many modern researches integrate BMS frameworks with BIM models to achieve smarter and automated management throughout the life cycle of the bridge [17,18,19,20,21,22]. Traditional, paper-based methods of maintaining infrastructure, are no longer viable as governments now expect digital tools that leverage information and communication technology (ICT) [3].…”

“…For example, checklists for inspections that are filled on site using mobile technology and uploaded directly to a BIM model using programming language [19]. The connection between a BIM model and the BMS can be done through different methods, such as structured query Language (SQL) statements [19]; C# [19], Matlab [23,24] or other programming languages; IFC [17,21,22,25,26]; machine learning [27,28,29] and artificial intelligence algorithms [18].…”

“…changes in physical condition or performance indicators [6], are also frequently performed, mainly through probabilistic methods. However, there have been many advancements in structural analysis in BMS frameworks that can be applied to improve this field, such as automated bridge assessment through artificial intelligence algorithms [18] and association of BIM models with FEM models [19,20], GIS [21] and risk breakdown structures (RBS) [30,31].…”