CETA Faculty and Student Receive SGA Academic Research Grant Award

The College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture (CETA) is excited to announce CETA faculty member Clara Fang, professor in civil engineering, and Sydney Lewis ’22, a civil engineering major, have been awarded a Student Government Association (SGA) Academic Research Grant Award. The grant will allow them to pursue their research work in modeling bridge deterioration conditions using artificial intelligence (AI) to better our local infrastructure.

The project will apply AI, especially neural networks, to better understand bridge inspection data and predict future bridge conditions as public infrastructure deteriorates over time. The neural networks program will be used to analyze data and provide results on which bridges will require maintenance and inspections to ensure all continue to work safely and efficiently. The trained network will allow the computer program to calculate a rating of a bridge’s condition in Connecticut based on variables recommended in the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Connecticut Department of Transportation.

Lewis has been working on testing in smaller scaled examples using Matlab Deep Learning toolbox this Spring.  She had some success in testing neural network variables to achieve a satisfactory result. Next, the research team will work on expanding their program to import and analyze bridge data from multiple years. The factors considered include bridge identification information, bridge types, operational conditions, bridge geometric data, functional description of the bridge, inspection data, etc. We expect the result of the project will provide useful information to the Connecticut Department of Transportation on the bridge management system. As part of this project, Fang will also be using the research gathered and project data to help in developing a course to introduce students to AI applications in engineering.

Fang and Lewis are planning to begin this project more in depth in the Fall.