Urban infrastructures are vital networks, absolutely necessary for the functioning of the twenty-first century urban complex. Modern societies and their underlying economies rely on the ability to move goods, people, and information quickly, safely, and reliably. Consequently, it is of the utmost importance to government, business, and the public at large to understand the nature of urban infrastructure and take the measures necessary to ensure that the flow of services provided by it continues unimpeded in the face of a broad range of natural and manmade hazards. But infrastructures are susceptible to damage from extreme loads, such as wind, floods or fires, earthquakes, landslides or overloads. Moreover, those same structures can suffer long-term damage if their strength is allowed to deteriorate gradually over time. Repair of damage is very costly. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is able mitigate high maintenance costs by detecting and measuring damaging phenomena as they occur. Likewise, SHM can mitigate long-term damage by continuously monitoring the structural condition of key components and is particularly valuable after there has been a damaging event, if there are concerns about the remaining stability of a structure. But although Structural Health Monitoring is able play a major role in infrastructure maintenance, to date only a very selected part is monitored, due to the high costs of well structured SHM installations. At present, SHM installations are high cost custom projects, tailor made for each single infrastructure, and therefore employed only on a few very selected targets.
The aim behind the In-K Strain System is to bring to the market a cost effective, scalable, reliable solution for extended automated remote real-time Structural Health Monitoring of infrastructures, through a completely innovative approach to sensor design and material, data/information management and transmission. At the heart of the In-K Strain System is an innovative, patented Smart Skin Sensor, based on the use of carbon nanotube ink applied through a commercial inkjet printer on advanced composite material.
Thanks to the reduced costs of our In-K Sensor System, SHM will become affordable for application on a large number of targets, up to date without continuous structural control. The innovative design and material of the sensors make them perfectly suited not only for installation on new constructions but especially for SHM retrofit operations on existing infrastructure.
