‘Monitoring venues’ structural health vital’

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Fernando A. Neris has dedicated four years of his career trying to promote and propagate Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of the buildings and venues.

Neris is the President of Estructura and is based in Florida (US). He ensures the safety quotient of the buildings.

Fernando Neris is the Founder, Partner and President of both Dorado Services (an engineering firm) and Estructura. Fernando has a Bachelor’s Science degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Central Florida (US).

In an interaction with ‘Coliseum’, Fernando A. Neris, P.E., President, Estructura, US, asserts that Estructura supports sustainable construction practices and improves the resilience of the build environment. He shares insights on the same and states that Estructura helps the venue operators/owners save money on maintenance of the stadia and most important “possibly saving the lives of the fans that come into the venues every day”.
 

Estructura

Estructura offers customized structural monitoring services to aid in building management, risk limitation and emergency preparedness. Estructura is a Platinum partner of the Swiss manufacturer GeoSIG which provides earthquake, seismic, structural, dynamic, and static monitoring and measuring solutions. This technology is installed on critical infrastructures worldwide including large sport venues, Railways, bridges, dams, and Science and technology facilities.
 

SHM

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a process that continuously assesses the buildings, structures, dams, and venues, especially critical infrastructure. Estructura does the same by utilizing advanced technology like sensors, data analysis, predictive modeling and this way the SHM allows to detect potential issues before they escalate into a serious problem.

Narrated Fernando A. Neris, “The GeoSIG sensors are installed throughout a structure to monitor and calculate parameters that are relevant to structural stability and safety. This system can be connected to the building management system and provides continuous data which can be used to detect normal wear and tear over the aging of a structure allowing the Facility Managers to catch the faults early before they worsen and become more costly or threatening.”

He added, “The above system helps to minimize the unnecessary business interruption and optimizes continuity. Looking at the data the most impacted areas within a structure can be identified which also helps avoid unnecessary construction investments and provides a data-based reference to optimize insurance claims.”

Neris pointed out that one of the principal objectives of stadium management is to ensure that the facility can be used securely as soon as possible following a disaster given the nature of sports and entertainment events and the cost of interruptions and delays –“Therefore, the venues’ state of health needs to be evaluated in the shortest time possible after such events. A value of the technology is then measured as the ratio between the installation costs vs. continuity of revenue generation and continuity of visibility.”
 

Wrap-up

Fernando A. Neris wrapped up by stating that it is imperative to monitor the structural health of the venues – “The structural health monitoring is a tool for today and tomorrow. Not only do the sensors assist with ongoing year-round maintenance and upkeep they are also a disaster resilience and recovery tool – an essential part of a Facility Manager’s tool kit. At a time of fast worsening extreme climate events it is a tool every significant and society-critical structure should have.”

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• Fernando A. Neris
• Structural Health Monitoring

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