Efficient Infrastructure

Challenges

Roadways account for an annual investment of $400 billion globally (IRF, 2010). To support its anticipated economic growth, UAE is expected to spend $354 billion from 2019-2038 for developing roadways, utilities and other infrastructures, representing an annual expenditure of approx. $18 billion (John, 2019). Clearly, this rising demand for infrastructure will impose tremendous stress on the economy and natural resources. Thus, there is an urgent need for research on constructing efficient infrastructure systems that are resilient, sustainable, and cost effective. In this aspect, there is a considerable lack of research that empirically correlates the financial, structural and environmental characteristics with the use of alternate materials on actual projects from the region. Further, the inspection and deterioration assessment of concealed infrastructures (i.e., power lines, drainage and sewer pipes) is currently carried out visually or using CCTV. However, an automated defect recognition may save upwards of $1 million annually (Knight, 2017). The Efficient Infrastructure Research Group specifically targets this by utilising experts in the areas of material science, cost-benefit analysis, life-cycle assessment, and image processing to develop solutions for efficient infrastructures, including asset optimisation, automated defect recognition, sustainable materials and life-cycle decision-support methodologies.

Aim

The goal is to develop techniques for inspecting and assessing the status of existing infrastructures, identify hotspots, formulate decision support systems for efficiently deploying resources, and analyse and compare the structural, economical and environmental performance of state-of-the-art infrastructure materials.

Expected Outcomes

The expected outcomes encompass a comparative analysis of the financial and environmental impacts of different options for undertaking comprehensive tender works in the construction and management of roadworks, while also identifying the optimum (material and design) alternatives for real-world applications. The group will also develop and train automated defect-recognition models for reliable simulation of real-world deficiency conditions.

Ongoing and Recent Research Projects

• "Development of Decision Support Systems for Road Network Maintenance Scheduling in UAE through Artificially Intelligent Bayesian Belief Networks" in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure.
• "Performance of Self-Healing Concrete in Corrosive Environment" in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure.
• "Performance of Non-Metallic Basalt Fibre-Reinforced Recycled Aggregate Concrete" in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure.
• "Development of Deep CNN-Based Crack Detection and Localisation Algorithms for Road Networks" in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure.
• Life cycle assessment of roadworks in United Arab Emirates: Recycled construction waste, reclaimed asphalt pavement, warm-mix asphalt and blast furnace slag use against traditional approach.