Automatic Detection of Cracks in Asphalt Pavement Using Deep Learning to Overcome Weaknesses in Images and GIS Visualization

The crack ratio is one of the indices used to quantitatively evaluate the soundness of asphalt pavement. However, since the inspection of pavement requires much labor and cost, automatic inspection of pavement damage by image analysis is required in order to reduce the burden of such work. In this study, a system was constructed that automatically detects and evaluates cracks from images of pavement using a convolutional neural network, a kind of deep learning. The most novel aspect of this study is that the accuracy was recursively improved through retraining the convolutional neural network (CNN) by collecting images which had previously been incorrectly analyzed. Then, study and implementation were conducted of a system for plotting the results in a GIS. In addition, an experiment was carried out applying this system to images actually taken from an MMS (mobile mapping system), and this confirmed that the system had high crack evaluation performance

Evaluation of Tensile Performance of Steel Members by Analysis of Corroded Steel Surface Using Deep Learning

To conduct safety checks of corroded steel structures and formulate appropriate maintenance strategies, the residual strength of steel structural members must be assessed with high accuracy. Finite element method (FEM) analyses that precisely recreate the morphology of corroded surfaces using solid elements are expected to accurately assess the strength; however, the cost of conducting these calculations is extremely high. Therefore, a model that uses mean thickness as the thickness of the shell element is widely used but this method has precision issues, particularly regarding overestimation of risk. Thus, this study proposes a method of structural analysis in which the effective thickness of a shell element is assessed using the convolutional neural network (CNN), a type of deep learning performed on tensile structural members. An FEM model is then built based on the shell element that uses this effective thickness. We cross-validated this method by adding a feature extraction layer that reflects the domain knowledge, together with convolutional and pooling layers that are commonly used for CNN and found that a high level of accuracy could be achieved. Furthermore, regarding corroded steel plates and H-section steel, our method demonstrated results that were extremely close to those of models that used solid elements