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Access Type

WSU Access

Date of Award

January 2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

First Advisor

Mumtaz A. Usmen

Second Advisor

Emrah Kazan

Abstract

ABSTRACT

TOWARDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF SMART UNDERGROUND INFRASTRUCTURES

By

ERONMONSELE ESEKHAIGBE

August 2020

Advisors: Dr. Mumtaz Usmen and Dr. Emrah Kazan

Major: Civil Engineering

Degree: Master of Science

Imagine a smart city were all overhead and underground infrastructures are connected. In order to fully achieve this smart city concept, it is important to have the digital twin of the above ground and below ground space. There are over 35 million miles of buried service utilities in the US and this number keeps growing every year due to increasing urbanization and industrialization. Digitalization of the ground surface is made easy with cameras and other digital equipment, but challenges exist for 3D mapping beneath the ground surface due to inconsistency and uncertainty. Accidents leading to worker injury and fatality and underground utility damages caused by the inaccuracy of 2D as-built drawings have been on the rise, and this is a call for the development of smart underground infrastructure.

The proposed study is an in-depth review of general underground utility management practices focusing on how underground assets can be accurately digitalized in 3D BIM models. The critical review of existing information from literature sources is supplemented by survey questionnaires sent to the utility industry firms and one call centers. Besides documenting current underground asset management practices, information is derived on the future outlook in the digitalization of underground utilities. Based on the findings of this study, underground utility asset management practices are classified into 3 groups and suggestions for digitalization are presented.

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