Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Traditional visual inspection of hydraulic structures, while crucial for maintaining dam safety and ensuring structural integrity, is often labour-intensive, time-consuming, and reliant on subjective manual documentation. This reliance on paper forms and disparate photographic evidence frequently results in data inconsistency, poor traceability, and reduced accessibility of critical historical condition records. This paper presents a novel and integrated methodology designed to complement and enhance essential on-site dam inspection protocols by combining high-resolution 360-degree panoramic imaging with custom-built digital inspection form systems. The proposed system utilises specialised 360-degree cameras to capture comprehensive, georeferenced visual records of the entire dam structure and its immediate environment. These immersive images serve as the foundation for the digital forms, allowing inspectors to accurately localise and annotate defects directly onto the visual data with precise spatial context. The digital forms enforce mandatory fields and standardise defect categorisation, significantly improving objectivity and consistency in documentation compared to traditional methods. Key findings demonstrate that this integrated solution considerably reduces on-site inspection time while simultaneously enhancing the quality, completeness, and auditability of the documented defects. Furthermore, the resulting 360-degree visual archive provides a permanent, easily navigable baseline for remote expert review and quantitative historical comparison, thereby improving collaboration and long-term asset management. This framework offers a safer, more efficient, and robust support tool for dam safety engineers, paving the way for the future integration of machine learning algorithms for automated defect detection and predictive maintenance planning.
Source: Procedia Structural Integrity
Institution: National Laboratory for Civil Engineering
Language: English
Topic: Dam Engineering and Safety
Subfield: Civil and Structural Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7214769482