Integrating BIM and IoT for smart bridge management

Abstract

Considering high risk, long construction period, high construction and maintenance costs, bridge management is asynchronous, unintelligent and inefficient. The purpose of this research is to investigate a new approach with its supporting building information modelling (BIM) and Internet of Things (IoT) tool to enhance the smart management in bridge life cycle. BIM provides detailed geometric and semantic information and IoT contains the management and analysis of the actual condition of the bridge. An example of a super bridge under construction in Xinjiang is used to illustrate the developed system. Results show that the developed system can significantly grasp the quality of the bridge in time, reduce the construction risk and construction period. The developed BIM/IoT-based system is also effective and practical in the quality and risk management among multiple locations, such as smart buildings, smart tunnels, and even smart cities.