A Cross-Platform Approach Using Remote Sensing and Geophysical Monitoring to Streamline Geotechnical Asset Management
Publication: Geo-Congress 2023
ABSTRACT
ASCE Report Card of 2020 rated transportation infrastructure poorly for many states across the United States. Mississippi has its share of challenges regarding deteriorating multimodal infrastructure. Integral parts of the spatially distributed infrastructure are geotechnical assets such as highway embankments, retaining walls, subgrades, and bridge foundations. Traditionally, Transportation Asset Management (TAM) programs have primarily focused on pavement and bridge assessment with minimal attention to geotechnical assets. Geotechnical Asset Management (GAM) is still in the nascent design and implementation stage across the United States, including MS. There is a need for specific guidance involving modern techniques to evaluate geotechnical assets and prioritize maintenance funds to reduce risk to the infrastructure systems. Highway embankments are one of the most common and at-risk geotechnical assets in MS. The risks stem from high rainfall and cyclic weather patterns and are further compounded by expansive clay in many of the embankments in MS. This study investigated the performance of failed highway embankments across the central MS region using multiple approaches. Temporally spaced data was collected through remote sensing techniques such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR), geophysical investigations such as electrical resistivity, and in situ instrumentation such as an Inclinometer. 3D laser scanning was performed using the terrestrial LiDAR equipment Trimble X7. Dense point clouds data was acquired from a highway embankment that had previously experienced extreme surficial deformations and failure. Topographical surfaces were developed using the dense point cloud data, and the bare ground was extracted. Temporally spaced surface profiles of the failed and undamaged areas of the slopes were created for comparative analysis. The surface profiles and the subsurface resistivity images were matched against the inclinometer and instrumentation data collected across the same period. This comparative analysis provided valuable insights into surficial soil movement with varying weather patterns and subsurface moisture variations. Combining remote sensing and geophysical investigations will help develop a modern performance monitoring methodology for integration into the GAM framework. Furthermore, the results from this study promise a robust cross-platform assessment approach that can be expanded to other geotechnical assets and help streamline Geotechnical Asset Management.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Anderson, S. A. (2016). Communicating Multiobjective Risk A New Geotechnical Need for Transportation. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 80–88.
ASCE. (2020). 2020 Report Card for Mississipppi’s Infrastructure.
Bouali, E., Oommen, T., and Escobar, R. (2017). Structure Mapping through Spatial and Temporal Deformation Monitoring Using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry and Geographic Information Systems. ASCE.
Huang, Y. H. (2004). Pavement Analysis and Design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Kimmerling, R. E., and Thompson, P. D. (2015). Assessment of Retaining Wall Inventories for Geotechnical Asset Management. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1–6.
Khan, M. S., Nobahar, M., Hossain, M. S., and Ivoke, J. (2021). Investigation of a Highway Slope Failure on Yazoo Clay Using Electrical Resistivity Imaging (ERI). In Geo-Extreme 2021 (pp. 255–265).
Khan, M. S., Nobahar, M., Stroud, M., Ferguson, S., and Ivoke, J. (2022). Performance Evaluation of a Highway Slope on Expansive Soil in Mississippi. International Journal of Geomechanics, 22(1), 05021005.
Luo, H., Wang, L., Wu, C., and Zhang, L. (2018). An Improved Method for Impervious Surface Mapping Incorporating LiDAR Data and High-Resolution Imagery at Different Acquisition Times. Remote Sensing, 10(9).
Marx, A., Chou, Y.-H., Mercy, K., and Windisch, R. (2019). A Lightweight, Robust Exploitation System for Temporal Stacks of UAS Data: Use Case for Forward-Deployed Military or Emergency Responders. Drones.
Nobahar, M., Khan, M., Salunke, R., Gardner, A., and Chia, H. K. (2022). Moisture Variation Monitoring of Failed and Not-Failed Highway Slope through Resistivity Imaging in Mississippi. GeoCongress 2022, Geophysical and Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics. Charlotte: American Society of Civil Engineers(ASCE).
Sarker, L. (2018). Field Swcc Modeling And Soil Water Storage Evaluation Through Geophysical Testing (Doctoral dissertation).
Thompson, P. D., Beckstrand, D., Mines, A., Vessely, M., Stanley, D., and Benko, B. (2016). Geotechnical asset management plan: Analysis of life-cycle cost and risk. Transportation Research Record, 2596, 36–43. https://doi.org/10.3141/2596-05.
Vessely, M., Robert, W., Richrath, S., Schaefer, V. R., Smadi, O., Loehr, E., and Boeckmann, A. (2019). Geotechnical Asset Management for Transportation Agencies, Volume 1: Research Overview. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Tranportation Research Board.
Wolf, R. E., Bouali, E., Oommen, T., Cerminaro, D., Cunningham, K. W., Dobson, R., and Brooks, C. (2014). Candidate Remote Sensing Tehcniques for the Different Transportation Environments, Requirements, Platforms, and Optimal Data Fusion Methods for Assessing the State of Geotechnical Assets.
Gałuszka, A., Migaszewski, Z. M., and Namieśnik, J. (2015). Moving your laboratories to the field–Advantages and limitations of the use of field portable instruments in environmental sample analysis. Environmental research, 140, 593–603.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
History
Published online: Mar 23, 2023
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.