Advances in Geotechnical Sensors and Monitoring

The recent advances in sensor and communication technologies are making significant impacts on the monitoring methods used for geotechnical engineering. This chapter introduces several emerging technologies that have shown to provide new types of dataset that were not available a decade ago. Technologies such as computed tomography scanning, environmental scanning electron microscope, microfluidics, particle image velocimetry and transparent soils are now used to observe the behavior of geomaterials under various changes in the surrounding environment at the laboratory scale. Computer vision technologies, distributed fiber optic sensing, LiDAR, wireless sensor network and satellite images produce data of high resolution and large spatial coverage at relatively low cost at the field scale. They can be used for life-time performance monitoring of geotechnical structures. The new dataset obtained from these new emerging technologies can be the catalysts to transform the geotechnical engineering methods used for risk assessment, design, construction and maintenance to a higher level.