Fernando A. Neris is the President and Founder of Estructura which he says, “means structure in Spanish. But I wanted to play with the name and making them electronic so that one could play with the data”.
Fernando A. Neris is the President of Estructura which offers customized structural monitoring services to aid in building management, risk limitation and emergency preparedness.
In an exclusive talk with ‘Coliseum’, Fernando A. Neris, P.E. President, Estructura, US, shares that Estructura monitors the cars, the planes to be safe, healthier and last longer. He advises that the venue owners/operators should also monitor the venues on which they are “spending a lot of money on”. He says that the Estructura technology calls for action for the aging infrastructures – “Estructura provides its clients with peace of mind, custom solutions that offer an affordable way to the commercial and residential customers to reduce risks, lower costs, avoid disasters, and save lives.”
Estructura
Formerly known as the Structural Health Monitoring Specialists, Estructura specialize in Structural Health Monitoring for both new and aging infrastructure including the residential and the commercial buildings, the bridges, the dams, the railways, and the nuclear power plants.
Fernando A. Neris started the conversation by stating, “Estructura is now delivering modern technology to the Americas and Caribbean that has been used extensively around the world for over 30 years. This technology calls for action for our aging infrastructure. Estructura has the privilege to be the Platinum Partner to the world-renowned GeoSIG, the Swiss technology corporation.”
GeoSIG
GeoSIG provides structural health monitoring equipment for the aging structures. From residential to commercial building, bridges, dams, railways, Government facilities, hospitals, hotels, historical landmarks, mines, airports, nuclear power plants, and scientific equipment across seven continents and 60 countries. Structural Health Monitoring utilizes sensors to identify and verify the structural behavior. The GeoSIG revolutionary Swiss technology provides immediate response with each sensor having a minimum sampling rate of 50 samples and calculation per second. One truly gets a realtime view of the structure. With such a high sampling rate the systemers responds immediately and then it changes in the structure.
Notifications
Added A. Neris, “The audio and visual alarms can be installed inside a structure for the occupants and email notifications can be sent to the management when critical changes in the structure are detected and these urgent notifications can literally save lives.”
Reduction of Repair Costs
“Estructura helps in the early indications of potential damage which allow for predictive maintenance vs. preventative or reactive maintenance. The lowering costs potentially extend the life of the structure itself.”
Satellite Coms and Solar Backup
He informed that the GeoSIG equipment and software can protect even the most remote locations. They always are on satellite connections and solar power generation. The satellite connection also serves as a backup for critical infrastructure like hospitals when threats like hurricanes and earthquakes are ongoing.
Puerto Rico Coliseum
“We have an arena in Puerto Rico – the Puerto Rico Coliseum with 20,000-seat capacity – and we have 17 sensors on them and it is about a million square feet. The software is custom-made for each application. The variables we enter are the design parameters of when it was built. We are measuring not just the acceleration of every node but we are also measuring and recording the frequencies of the vibrations. So, we are also able to tell you if there is a change in the vibration and it could be a problem that we have internally.”
“The Bad Bunny (Puerto Rican rapper, singer and songwriter) concert at the stadium showed that the dancing crowd had an impact similar to a magnitude 3.5, 3.7 earthquake! The amount of vibration. There was a problem with the roof and we also made a 3D model of the roof of the facility without the sensors. So, what was happening is we were getting about one inch an hour rain event with a 50 mile an hour wind. So, our sensors were returning something’s happening and not that it’s detrimental but to keep an eye on it. So, we were able to tell the operator to check his roof drains and we were helping them with maintenance and to prevent any further damages and everything was good with the venue itself.”
Conclusion
The structural tools provide continuous data and structure subject to the effects of the sea level rise especially in highly salt-prone coastal regions. Even lapses in Governmental inspections or simply the natural passage of time can play a role in structural safety. So, it is imperative that the residents utilize every tool available to them. For example, the emerging researches noted that the electric cars are by 50 percent heavier than the traditional gas-powered ones. As the electric vehicles become more problematic they pose a direct structural threat to the multistoried and the underground parking garages.”
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