In the aftermath of a seismic event, decision-makers have to decide quickly among alternative management actions with limited knowledge on the actual health condition of buildings. Each choice entails different direct and indirect consequences. For example, if a building sustains low damage in the mainshock but people are not evacuated, casualties may occur if aftershocks lead the structure to fail. On the other hand, the evacuation of a structurally sound building could lead to unnecessary financial losses due to business and occupancy interruption. A monitoring system can provide information about the condition of the building after an earthquake that can support the choice between several competing alternatives, targeting the minimization of consequences. This paper proposes a framework for quantifying the benefit of installing a permanent seismic structural health monitoring (S²HM) system to support building evacuation operations after a seismic event. Decision-makers can use this procedure to preventively evaluate the benefit of an SHM system and decide about the worthiness of its installation.

Periodic and exceptional inspections provide information about the condition of bridges to support decisions on maintenance or repair activities needed to counteract defects and damages efficiently. Inspections are carried out on a regular basis or after special events. In different states, diverse approaches to visual inspections have been developed to support bridge integrity management. In the literature, several comparative studies have been published on inspection procedures; however, most of them compare a very limited number of countries due to a lack of information or language barriers. In this paper, the inspection practices adopted in several countries and regions worldwide are critically examined through a comprehensive survey of the available standards, guidelines, and best practices. The novel contribution of this paper concerns the application of a new method to classify and assess different bridge inspection procedures. This is achieved through the definition of indicators relating to different aspects of the quality of data collected during the inspections.

This work presents the first results obtained by applying in situ and remote-sensing methodologies to monitor the Ponte della Musica-Armando Trovajoli located in Rome, within the activities of the WP6 “Structural Health Monitoring and Satellite Data” 2019-21 Reluis Project. In particular, the use of remote-sensing Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Interferometry (DInSAR) measurements provided a spatial map of the displacement of the investigated infrastructure and the corresponding time-series, with the aim of monitoring deformation phenomena, focusing on the local scale analysis, which produces suitable results for urban monitoring and damage assessment. The DInSAR results have been integrated with the identification of the dynamic characteristics of the bridge, performed through an experimental campaign of ambient vibration measurements carried out in October 2020 and with the local-scale definition of the engineering geological setting of the foundation soil. The subsoil of the bridge is constituted by more than 50 m of recent alluvial deposits resting on Pliocene stiff clay acting as a geological bedrock. A substantially stable behavior of the bridge structural elements has been observed based on the analysis of both satellite and velocimetric data. This case represents a good example about how the integration of in situ sensors with remotely sensed data and the exploitation of a detailed knowledge regarding the on-site conditions represent a key factor for a sustainable structural and infrastructural monitoring and can support the planning both of maintenance and safety management.

In recent years, structural health monitoring (SHM) has received increasing interest from both research and professional engineering communities. This is due to the limitations related to the use of traditional methods based on visual inspection for a rapid and effective assessment of structures and infrastructures when compared with the great potential offered by newly developed automatic systems. Most of these kinds of systems allow the continuous estimation of structural modal properties that are strictly correlated to the mechanical characteristics of the monitored structure. These can change as a result of material deterioration and structural damage related to earthquake shaking. Furthermore, a suitable configuration of a dense sensor network in a real-time monitoring system can allow to detect and localize structural and non-structural damage by comparing the initial and a final state of the structure after a critical event, such as a relevant earthquake. In this paper, the modal curvature evaluation method, used for damage detection and localization on framed structures, considering the mode curvature variation due to strong earthquake shaking, is further developed. The modified approach is validated by numerical and experimental case studies. The extended procedure, named “Curvature Evolution Method” (CEM), reduces the required computing time and the uncertainties in the results. Furthermore, in this work, an empirical relationship between curvature variation and damage index has been defined for both bare and infilled frames.

All over Europe, the management of bridge integrity is carried out primarily through inspections that allow collecting information about the condition of bridges and support decisions about remedial interventions. Different approaches to bridge inspection have been developed among different states. The adoption of harmonized regulation and standards on bridge inspections at the European level would greatly benefit the efficiency of transport infrastructure. Several comparative studies have been conducted in the literature on inspection procedures in different European countries; however, most of them are incomplete due to lack of information or inaccessibility of sources. In this paper, a wide-ranging review of bridge inspection practices carried out in several European countries is provided. The novel contribution of this paper concerns the definition of a framework to classify and assess different bridge inspection procedures entailing the definition of different indicators relating to different aspects of the quality of data, specifically: completeness, timeliness, correctness related to human and technical factors, and level of data processing.