Outdoor space self-calibrating thermoelasticity-based fatigue damage identification

Bridge and civil infrastructures maintenance, inspection, and monitoring are essential to economics and public safety. Many of the bridges were built during the 1950s and are now nearing the end of their useful life, as recent tragical events showed. Over the last twenty years, a large amount of research has been funded by European Research Framework Programmes for investigating materials, components, and software tools. ARTEMIDE points to create two fundamental methods to develop an innovative approach for the full-field identification of fatigue damage in outdoor space structures, based on infrared imaging. The first method consists of a self-calibration and motion compensation tool for image conditioning, while the second method allows thermal measurements to be performed consistently and reliably in outdoor environments. In this way, damage assessment can be performed more efficiently and effectively than is possible today.