Critical Infrastructure Monitoring with Global Navigation Satellite Systems
Publication: Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 4
Abstract
This paper documents measured deformation within four global positioning system (GPS) networks deployed on critical, heavy-engineered infrastructure in real time over a combined 5-year period. The first is an ∼2-km, four-lane floating freeway that deforms daily in response to temperature and traffic loads and seasonal lake-level variation. The second is a 6-lane elevated freeway ∼1 km in length that has subsided unevenly and discontinuously since it was damaged by the 2001 (MW 6.8) Nisqually earthquake. Two additional structures comprise ∼300-m-long, earth-filled dams forming major reservoirs (Howard A. Hanson and Tolt dams). Real-time kinematic processing of high rate (1s or 5-s epochs) GPS observations over short baselines (0.1 to ∼1 km) permits continuous deformation monitoring at centimeter-level accuracy, whereas long-term deformation was measured at subcentimeter accuracy through postprocessing of 24-h observations. The floating freeway showed 60 cm of annual vertical displacement and a 1.4-± 0.4-cm short-period oscillation that correlates with traffic and temperature but no response to bridge-perpendicular winds gusting to 74 km/h (40 knots). Along the elevated freeway, 4–7 mm/year of lateral displacement and 4.3 ± 14 mm/year of subsidence is observed. At Howard A. Hanson Dam, daily measurements show a slow response at the southernmost portion of the dam to the filling with water of a 30-m-deep pit excavated adjacent to the dam. The fourth structure, Tolt Dam, is stable but shows a vertical response to reservoir level and appears to isolate its GPS receivers from a well-documented regional hydrological signal.
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Acknowledgments
The deployment of continuous GPS monitoring was enabled by Cooperative Agreement Grant G15AC00062 to the Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array at Central Washington University by the U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Hazards Program. Additional real-time analysis techniques were developed under National Aeronautics and Space Administration Research Opportunities in Solid Earth Sciences Grant NNXlOAD15G. Additional construction, operations, and maintenance support were provided by the City of Seattle. The authors thank the Seattle District of the USACE, WSDOT, and the City of Seattle for permission and assistance in GPS receiver installation and maintenance. Raw satellite observations from all GPS stations described in this paper are archived and may be downloaded from the data portal of the Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array at Central Washington University together with corresponding metadata. Hydrological data are available from the USGS. Road traffic data were provided by WSDOT.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 142 • Issue 4 • November 2016
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 6, 2015
Accepted: Dec 23, 2015
Published online: Feb 26, 2016
Discussion open until: Jul 26, 2016
Published in print: Nov 1, 2016
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