Keynote Speaker - Belén Riveiro

Belén Riveiro

University of Vigo, Spain

There is an increasing concern about the exposure of ageing infrastructure assets to extreme events and their recovery capability. In parallel, digitalization is playing a key role as enabling technology to adopt innovative tools and methods that allow accessing information that optimize the decision-making processes in such a way maintenance expenditures are minimized for the life cycle and at the same time safety and serviceability are preserved. As a result, new techniques in data acquisition and monitoring (including data analysis) are being proposed to accurately assess the health condition of in-service infrastructures.

This talk will present some recent examples of the research where various NDT techniques combined with advanced computing methods have been demonstrated to be a suitable technology to assess the actual condition of various types of infrastructure assets, with the purpose of being used for the structural diagnosis. Automated data processing will be another key point in this talk, motivated by the Big Data nature of the datasets typically collected during the survey and monitoring of large infrastructure. A revision of methods successfully applied to the processing of the aforementioned data will be presented, complemented with real case studies where the different methodologies have been demonstrated. The collection of case studies comprise large infrastructure networks, that ranges from road to railways systems. Another assets where the talk will concentrate is the case of bridges, as these become one of the most vulnerable assets within the transportation network. For these structures, it will be shown how the combination of monitoring data and AI-based models is contributing to anticipate potential structural failures.

Belén Riveiro is an Associate Professor at the University of Vigo (UVigo). She started her independent postdoctoral career as Associate Professor at Newcastle University (UK) in 2011 and later as Assistant Professor at UVigo. Her research focuses on the field of infrastructure resilience, where she integrates different disciplines such as structural engineering, geomatics, artificial intelligence, and automation in construction. This combination of disciplines provides her a unique multidisciplinary research profile, leading to her work having an impact beyond the scientific community. Since 2012, she collaborates with some of the most recognized researchers in her field, thanks to stays she has carried out at universities such as the University of Minho, the University of Cambridge, and Delft University of Technology, among others. These collaborations led to her participation and leadership in national and international collaborative projects (with funding as the principal investigator exceeding €5 million). As a result of his experience in the field of structural monitoring, Riveiro coordinates the National Network in Monitoring and Inspection for the Evaluation of Structures (funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation), which integrates the most recognized researchers in structural monitoring in Spain. Her academic trajectory has been recognized with the “National Research Award Matilde Ucelay 2022", delivered by TM the Kings of Spain, which represents the greatest recognition of research career in the field of Engineering and Architecture for young researchers in Spain.