Nowadays, low-cost accelerometers are getting more attention from civil engineers to make Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications affordable and applicable to a broader range of structures. The present accelerometers based on Arduino or Raspberry Pi technologies in the literature share some of the following drawbacks: (1) high Noise Density (ND), (2) low sampling frequency, (3) not having the Internet’s timestamp with microsecond resolution, (4) not being used in experimental eigenfrequency analysis of a flexible and a less-flexible bridge, and (5) synchronization issues. To solve these problems, a new low-cost triaxial accelerometer based on Arduino technology is presented in this work (Low-cost Adaptable Reliable Accelerometer—LARA). Laboratory test results show that LARA has a ND of 51 µg/√Hz, and a frequency sampling speed of 333 Hz. In addition, LARA has been applied to the eigenfrequency analysis of a short-span footbridge and its results are compared with those of a high-precision commercial sensor.

Globally, corrosion is the costliest cause of the deterioration of metallic and concrete structures, leading to significant financial losses and unexpected loss of life. Therefore, corrosion monitoring is vital to the assessment of structures’ residual performance and for the identification of pathologies in early stages for the predictive maintenance of facilities. However, the high price tag on available corrosion monitoring systems leads to their exclusive use for structural health monitoring applications, especially for atmospheric corrosion detection in civil structures. In this paper a systematic literature review is provided on the state-of-the-art electrochemical methods and physical methods used so far for corrosion monitoring compatible with low-cost sensors and data acquisition devices for metallic and concrete structures. In addition, special attention is paid to the use of these devices for corrosion monitoring and detection for in situ applications in different industries. This analysis demonstrates the possible applications of low-cost sensors in the corrosion monitoring sector. In addition, this study provides scholars with preferred techniques and the most common microcontrollers, such as Arduino, to overcome the corrosion monitoring difficulties in the construction industry.

The Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology improves architectural and infrastructure projects by digitizing their processes throughout their life cycle stages, such as design, construction, management, monitoring, and operation. In recent years, the automation of these processes has been favored by the use of visual programming (VP) tools that have replaced conventional programming languages for visual schemes. The use of these tools in architectural projects is becoming increasing popular. However, this is not the case in infrastructure projects, for which the use of VP algorithms remains scarce. The aim of this work is to encourage both scholars and engineers to implement VP tools in infrastructure projects. For this purpose, this work reviews, for the first time in the literature, the state-of-the-art and future research trends of VP tools in infrastructure projects.

Nowadays, engineers are widely using accelerometers to record the vibration of structures for structural verification purposes. The main obstacle for using these data acquisition systems is their high cost, which limits its use to unique structures with a relatively high structural health monitoring budget. In this paper, a Cost Hyper-Efficient Arduino Product (CHEAP) has been developed to accurately measure structural accelerations. CHEAP is a system that is composed of five low-cost accelerometers that are connected to an Arduino microcontroller as their data acquisition system. Test results show that CHEAP not only has a significantly lower price (14 times cheaper in the worst-case scenario) compared with other systems used for comparison but also shows better accuracy on low frequencies for low acceleration amplitudes. Moreover, the final output results of Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) assessments showed a better observable resolution for CHEAP than the studied control systems.