1 of 18

��

Dr Negin Yousefpour, PhD, PE

negin.yousefpour@unimelb.edu.au

negin.yousefpour@arup.com

TRB 2022 - AKG70 Committee Meeting

ScourSense:�AI Applications for Bridge Scour Forecast

Jan 2022

2 of 18

A Bit of History

Proposal: 2018

Arup Global Research Challenge Winner

Stage 1: 2018-2019

Data Collection, AI Developments, Validation

Stage 2: 2020-2021

AI development and Engagement

Stage 3: 2021-2022

Expansion and Implementation

3 of 18

Scour Monitoring Data

Sonar

Bed Elevation

Stage

Water

Elevation

Alaska Sonar and Stage Sensors, 23 bridges: 2006 -2020

USGS Alaska Science Centre/Alaska DOT

Bridge 742

4 of 18

Bridge 742 – Chilkat River

5 of 18

Data Processing

Raw Sensor Data

Outlier Rejection

Sonar and Stage Synch.

Filtering/Denoising

Missing Data Imputation

Bridge 742- Sonar

Bridge 742- Stage

Chilkat River

6 of 18

Data Processing

2014 - 2017

Pre-processed Data (Base Cleaned)

Processed Data

7 of 18

AI Solution

Real-time Scour Early Warning System

8 of 18

Deep Learning and RNNs

Time Series Features

9 of 18

Memory Unit

C_t-1

h_t-1

C_t

h_t

C_t+1

h_t+1

+

Output

Memory

Term

10 of 18

Training the AI

Bridge 742-Chilkat river bridge

Training

Test

Input Feature= [sonar, stage, year sin, year cos]

Grid- Search/Optimizing Model Performance

Encoding and Training/Validation Technics

GPU Clusters!

Gaps in readings due to Frozen Season

11 of 18

Data Slicing

Input width

Label width

12 of 18

Grid-Search

Best Configurations out of 100s

Feature Combination
Training Method
Input, Label Width
No. of Hidden Units
No of LSTM Units
Drop Out Ratio

13 of 18

Scour Real-Time Forecast

Bridge 742

7 days in advance Forecast

MAE ~ 0.32 ft

STD < 0.3 ft

14 of 18

Scour Real-Time Forecast

Bridge 230

7 days in advance Forecast

MAE ~ 0.3 ft

15 of 18

Shallow geothermal energy & the use of energy geo-structures

Contributing towards net zero emissions

Professor Guillermo Narsilio

narsilio@unimelb.edu.au

16 of 18

GSHP and Energy Geo-structures

5°C

18°C

30°C

(Johnston, Narsilio and Colls, 2011 - Not to scale)

50-150 m

(vertical)

1.5-2.5 m

(horizontal)

Any structure in contact with the ground

🡪 GHE!

A GSHP, Ground Source Heat Pumps, system or shallow geothermal system takes advantage of the relatively constant temperature of the ground throughout the year, for Melb that is 18 degC (~75 F)

This is a schematic showing how shallow geothermal systems work in general using the ground as heat source/sink
As you see a heat pump is connected to pipes that are embedded in the ground, with a circulating fluid that exchanges the heat to/from the ground.
This is the traditional design, where pipes are embedded into boreholes, that need to be drilled and their sole purpose is for the geothermal energy
However, drilling is very expensive, making the capital costs for these systems high, even though their efficiency is much better than current alternatives
We traditionally use vertical boreholes or trenches as Ground Heat Exchangers (GHEs), but we can also use piles, walls, slabs or tunnel linings, pavements
In general, Any structure in contact with the ground can be converted into GHEs – these are abundant in transport infrastructure projects.

17 of 18

Shallow Geothermal and Energy Geo-structures

Energy Pile

Energy Diaphragm Wall

Energy Tunnel

(BINE, 2013)

(TU Wien, 2018)

(University of Melbourne, 2014)

Abundant in transport infrastructure projects

Use of underground structures with other primary purposes
Capital cost reduction
How much energy?

This new approach does introduce new challenges to geothermal design, a main one being the fact that we change our design perspective. Instead of asking, as in traditional systems, how do I design my geothermal system to provide this amount of energy, the main design question now becomes: how much energy can we provide from these structures (which will be build anyway for stability purposes)

In order to reduce this cost, new approaches are being developed for this technology, where the pipes are embedded into underground structures that have other primary functions. Therefore no drilling costs are associated with the geothermal systems. These include pile foundations, diaphragm walls, tunnels and pavements amongst others

18 of 18

Energy Pavements

5 m

10 m

0

Carpark

Geothermal pavement

Y Motamedi, N Makasis, X Gu, GA Narsilio, A Arulrajah, S Horpibulsuk (2020), Investigating the thermal behaviour of geothermal pavements using Thermal Response Test (TRT), Transportation Geotechnics 29, 100576

X Gu, N Makasis, Y Motamedi, GA Narsilio, A Arulrajah, S Horpibulsuk (2021), Geothermal pavements: field observations, numerical modelling and long-term performance, Géotechnique, 1-15

heating and cooling yields: ~40W/m²