China’s government has invested in electronic monitoring systems for conducting structural health research on seven recently constructed megastructures in China including both of the main venues for next month's Olympic Games – the Beijing National Stadium and the National Aquatics Centre. 

China Earthquake Administration (CEA), the governmental body managing the country’s earthquake preparedness and disaster mitigation, selected a structural health monitoring (SHM) solution developed by CGM Engineering Inc.

The systems are designed to monitor structural health characteristics including stability, reliability and livability in real-time using sensors and communications links.

 “Our systems are designed to capture the vibrational signatures of structures and detect any sudden shifts of structural characteristics to improve structures and help reduce the loss of life and property when catastrophic events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or fires occur,” said Chris McDonald, v-p of CGM Engineering.

The system is based on the National Instruments LabVIEW graphical system design platform and CompactRIO programmable automation controllers.

The nine 64-channel and two 36-channel SHM systems each contain multiple CompactRIO controllers that directly connect to accelerometers for vibration measurements and an external GPS receiver for inter-chassis synchronisation.

Within each chassis, a LabVIEW FPGA module is used to synchronise each measurement channel to within +/-10 microseconds of the GPS-disciplined clock.

The SHM system performs continuous, real-time monitoring at each location, and engineers can remotely access the locally stored data from anywhere in the world via secure Internet connections. 

In addition to the Olympic venues, the SHM systems are deployed in the 104-story World Trade Centre in Shanghai, 66-story Park Hyatt Hotel complex in Beijing, 240m concrete arch dam in Ertan, 8266 m cable-stayed bridge in Shan-Tou and base-isolated CEA data centre in Beijing.