Structural health monitoring of timber buildings: a literature survey

ABSTRACT

In recent years, multiple historic and contemporary timber buildings have been instrumented with sensors to monitor the performance of wood products and novel engineering systems. This paper presents the results of a literature survey focused on timber structural health monitoring (SHM) projects. This survey was aimed at investigating how the scopes of monitoring projects reported in the literature are technically addressed and who are the primary users of these data. The main contribution of this study is the definition of a general taxonomy to describe timber SHM projects, their scope, approaches and potential outcomes. This taxonomy aids readers in identifying ways of using information from SHM data. The results of this survey can be used to develop strategies allowing for data-supported decision-making for the preservation of historic buildings, the design of new structures and the service life management of built facilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Structural health monitoring
• timber buildings
• hygrothermal monitoring
• structural monitoring

Acknowledgements

The Authors are thankful to Eric Hansen, Lech Muszynski, Esther Baas and Noura Alhiri for their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The material presented in this contribution is also based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, McIntire Stennis project under 1009740.