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Laser-Sharp Insights

Innovative 3-D Mapping, Used to Assess Damage at the World Trade Center Site, Could Revolutionize Future Emergency Response

ENGNEWSlowermanhattan

University of Florida (UF) researchers are using cutting-edge laser technology to create three-dimensional maps of buildings damaged in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. One of eight NSF quick-response research awards announced on September 28th, this effort will provide far more detailed, accurate maps than ever before available to recovery workers and planners. The project will also shed light on how these powerful new techniques can be used to more rapidly assess structural damage to buildings and infrastructure, and improve emergency response during future disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and bombings.

UF team member, engineering professor Dave Bloomquist, is using both aerial (airborne laser swath mapping, or ALSM) [see www.alsm.ufl.edu] and ground-based scanning laser technologies capable of rapidly collecting and analyzing hundreds of millions of measurements. These data enable enhanced quantitative evaluation of structural damage, including determining deformations that particular structures were subjected to in and around the terrorist sites.

The use of cutting-edge laser mapping techniques to study damaged buildings surrounding the World Trade Center may help improve emergency response to future disasters, including earthquakes and hurricanes. 

Credit: DoD/Optech/UF
The use of cutting-edge laser mapping techniques to study damaged buildings surrounding the World Trade Center may help improve emergency response to future disasters, including earthquakes and hurricanes.

Bloomquist notes that laser mapping of the World Trade Center site allows researchers to study what was essentially an earthquake in a non-earthquake zone. Registered by some seismographs as an earthquake, the collapse of the twin towers created a huge shock that may have damaged pilings and the foundations of adjacent buildings. Analysis of laser-mapping data can detect, for example, bulging of external walls or differential settlement of foundations.

The UF team collected its first ground data on September 23rd. Unfortunately, the UF aerial equipment was being upgraded and was not operational. The manufacturer, Optech, made available substitute equipment for initial aerial-data gathering. The upgraded UF plane will be ready in late November 2001, and a second, more detailed aerial dataset will be collected.

A key project output will be recommendations to NSF concerning future use of the technology. These laser-mapping techniques could revolutionize emergency damage assessment, especially through proactive use to enable comparison of important infrastructure in earthquake- or hurricane-prone areas before and after disaster strikes. Structural engineers and others would have detailed 3-D baseline information to help them identify changes in structures caused by the event versus the effects of settling and other ongoing forces.

Bloomquist and colleagues received prior NSF support for a June 2001 workshop [see www.ce.ufl.edu/nsf/] on these new laser-mapping technologies and their use in studying "geosurficial" processes, including earthquakes, landslides, and sinkholes. The UF team also is discussing future collaboration with Georgia Tech's David Frost, another NSF grant recipient, as their ground-based laser-mapping techniques complement the advanced digital data system developed by Frost for earthquake reconnaissance missions. Long-term efforts to link the two technologies could produce an enhanced emergency response system in which handheld computers would be used to collect and accurately plot damage against 3-D laser-generated base maps.

For more information, contact Dave Bloomquist at dave@ce.uf.edu, 352-392-0914.

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