Terrestrial laser scanning for structural inspection with Kriging interpolation

Structural inspection often requires slowing down the traffic during the operation by limiting the number of passing vehicles or deviating the traffic. One of the possible inspection techniques is by laser scanning. Because of the high cost of use and data treatment, the laser technique is mainly applied either in specific structures or structures with a specific behaviour. The fact that all the huge number of measurements collected by laser would not be needed, can also discourage structure owners to invest in this measurement technique for the common inspection. This paper presents an easy-to-use method for structural inspection to monitor its behaviour during the service life. A data processing method is hence suggested by adjusting a reference plane to the structure area, meshing the structure with a grid depending on the model accuracy and creating an interpolation surface applying the Kriging procedure. Two case studies were presented to illustrate the accuracy of the method and its feasibility on large structures.

Automated summary

Laser scanning is a potential technique for structural inspection, but its cost hinders its widespread use. This paper proposes an easy-to-use method for monitoring the behavior of structures and demonstrates its accuracy and feasibility on large structures through case studies.