Failure Detection of Temporary Structures with Digital Image Correlation for Construction Safety Applications

Temporary structures refer systems and assemblies without a permanent foundation, which will be removed after a certain period of time. In the past decades there have been numerous significant collapses of temporary structures in United States. To ensure structural stability and the safety, there is increasingly demand of developing an industry wide standard code, technology and procedure of temporary structure design, erecting, maintenance, monitoring and evaluation for practicing engineers and contractors. In this study, Digital Image Correlation was utilized for structure monitoring and failure detection of temporary structure during construction or loading period. The experimental results demonstrated the displacement measurement at the structural nodes could be used to determine the safety stage of the structure, predict the structural failure time and location. The aim of this research is to advance this state of the art measurement technology and facilitate a real-time automated monitoring and detection system for of structural failures of temporary structures.