Energy-harvesting WSNs for structural health monitoring of underground train tunnels

Structural health monitoring is a vital tool to help engineers improving the safety of critical structures, avoiding the risks of catastrophic failures. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a very promising technology for structural health monitoring, as they can provide a quality of monitoring similar to conventional (wired) SHM systems with lower cost. In addiction, WSNs are both non-intrusive and non-disruptive and can be employed from the very early stages of construction.The main goal of this work is to investigate the feasibility of a WSN with energy-harvesting capabilities for structural health monitoring, specifically targeting underground tunnels.