9360497 Westermo This project will examine the design of peak strain and deflection-based instrumentation systems for the post- earthquake health monitoring of buildings and other civil infrastructures. The instrumentation systems are intended to evaluate the local material damage at specific points within a structure and be used to estimate, among other things, the level of damage a structure has suffered and the condition of the structure. The work will entail designing several types of sensors, performing full static and dynamic tests, and investigating approaches to designing a site-specific system and interpretation of the sensor output. The general distribution of high strains (or damage) incurred during an earthquake event to optimize the location of the sensors and the accuracy with which the system predicts the damage will be evaluated. The new technology made available through this study can provide for an economical and reliable means for structural safety assessment. There is a potential that prototype instrumentation systems could be developed and applied. This is an SBIR Phase I project. ***
