Sines breakwater harbour: the OSOM+ monitoring program

Abstract

Since 1986, the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC) has developed a program for Systematic Observation of Maritime Works (OSOM) for the structures under the responsibility of the former Port and Maritime Transport Institute (IPTM).The objective of this program is to monitor the behavior of the structures and recommend timely interventions for their maintenance and/or repair. Recently, with the acquisition by LNEC of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, or drone), a number of structural surveys have been carried out to complement the information obtained in above mentioned visual observation campaigns. The UAV provides more detailed and accurate information on the state of the structures. It also allows the assessment of the evolution of structures’ envelopes, as well as the production of representative profiles of the more problematic zones of such structures. On the other hand, the migration of the existing ANOSOM database to a WEB-based online platform was carried out, with a mobile app which assists the visual campaigns while also giving online access to all the information related to each maritime structure. All these new capabilities are now part of the so-called OSOM+, which methodologies will be described in this paper, with the study case of Sines breakwater harbours. The new features of OSOM+ described in this paper clearly contribute to a better and more efficient program of systematic observation of maritime works. Periodic visual observation campaigns complemented with drone observations allow a sounder determination of the Current, Evolution and Risk States of the structures and a more complete feeding of the ANOSOM_WEB database. During campaigns, the use of the mobile application in situ also streamlines the process. In the end, both the provider of this information (LNEC) and the end-users, namely Port Authority Administrations, benefit from a more accurate information on the state of the structures in a predominantly quantitative nature.