Development of laser-based displacement monitoring system and its application to large-scale spatial structures

Proper deformation process is essential for forming the shape of cable net structures during construction. This highlights the importance of identifying uneven and excessive deformation when building large-scale cable net structures. As such, the deformation of large-scale cable net structures should be accurately monitored in a real-time manner during the construction process. This study is to develop a laser-based displacement monitoring system for tracing the real-time deformation of large-scale spatial structures. The developed displacement monitoring system combines wireless sensor networks (WSN) and laser ranging technology. The laser-based displacement monitoring system is implemented on the National Speed Skating Oval (NSSO), which is a large-scale cable net structure, to obtain the relative displacement change between the cable net structure and the supporting system. On the other hand, the finite element (FE) model of the NSSO is established to simulate the deformation process. Then, the measured displacement results are compared with the FE model-derived counterparts. It is shown that the simulated and measured results have a good agreement, which indicates the effectiveness of the laser-based displacement monitoring system.