Teaching Experiment in Real-Time Construction Data Acquisition

by Boyd C. Paulson, Jr., Stanford Univ, Stanford CA, USA,
Hooman Sotoodeh-khoo, Stanford Univ, Stanford CA, USA,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Effects of Deterioration on Safety and Reliability of Structures

Abstract:

This paper describes an experiment used in an undergraduate civil engineering course to familiarize students with interfacing electronic instruments mounted on a construction machine to a microcomputer for data collection. The class, 'CE 125 - Computers in Civil Engineering', is a survey designed to show how computers are used in a wide range of applications, ranging from geotechnical analysis through structural design to construction. The experiment and its related theory are taught in one week of the course. The purpose of the experiment is to instrument a model crane to monitor load and boom angle so that the actual tipping moment can be monitored and compared to the safe moment for the specified machine and load. Since crane accidents are very common in spite of new types of instrumentation, it also enables the instructor to address practical issues about instrumentation, such as filtering noise from the data, how much control to delegate to automation vs. the operator, hardening the instruments for field conditions, etc.

Subject Headings: Construction equipment | Computing in civil engineering | Data collection | Cranes | Instrumentation | Construction management | Systems engineering

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