MAGIC · Monitoring systems to Assess Geotechnical Infrastructure subjected to Climatic hazards

The aim of the project is to develop novel systems to monitor earth structures exposed to climate hazard. Following completion of this research and concept demonstration project and subject to additional industry or commercial funding for the development of the technology, this effort is expected to eventually result in new commercial instruments and data management systems which it is in turn expected to lead to major improvement in design, maintenance, and adaptation of geotechnical infrastructure in a changing climate.The technological and scientific project will be implemented via secondments and recruitment of 182 researcher months in total including 72 months of recruitment and 110 months of secondment (51 months from Industry to Academia and 59 months from Academia to Industry).One of the major focus of the project will be the development and concept demonstration of two instruments for field measurement of pore-water tension (suction) up to 1.5 MPa, namely a high-capacity tensiometer for long-term measurement at shallow depths (<2m) and a tensiocone for rapid measurement of suction profile at great depths (up to 20m). Using proof-of-concepts prototypes developed by the academic partners in MAGIC, scientific and technological research will be carried out jointly by Industrial and Academic partners to use their respective scientific findings into a plan to assess the feasibility for the development of commercial instruments for pore-water tension measurement.MAGIC will also attempt to develop novel techniques for high-resolution imaging of water content based on Electrical Resistivity Tomography moving from proof-of-concepts prototypes already developed by academic partners. In addition, MAGIC will tackle the problem of real-time data control based on the concepts of measurement redundancy and coherence to identify faulty data due to instrument malfunctioning and/or mis-installation before these are transferred remotely.Finally, to validate and demonstrate monitoring systems, incorporating the new instruments developed by the project, MAGIC will build a unique facility consisting of a ‘benchmark’ field site instrumented with a variety of sensors for monitoring the weather-related moisture regime.