Sergio I. Reyes

UAV-based façade inspection typically relies on holistic surface coverage, capturing redundant imagery and generating inefficient flight paths when defects are localized at window-to-wall interfaces (WWIs). This study proposes a semantic-based UAV path-planning framework for autonomous WWI inspection. A Building Information Modeling (BIM)-derived knowledge graph is constructed to link façade geometry, inspection viewpoints, and defect records, enabling lifecycle traceability. To minimize image capture, each WWI is modeled as an annular boundary region and discretized into inspection cells. A greedy set-cover algorithm selects a compact viewpoint set for complete boundary coverage, which is sequenced into a collision-free route using a story-aware genetic algorithm. Furthermore, a provenance-driven mechanism enables targeted, closed-loop re-inspection of unresolved defects. Validation on a multi-story building across six UAV configurations demonstrated reductions of up to 89.8% in viewpoint count and 75.5% in flight distance compared to traditional baselines, significantly improving inspection efficiency.

Thick rubber bearings (TRBs) have been proven to be effective in mitigating horizontal shaking induced by earthquakes as well as railway-induced vertical vibration. During earthquake excita...

This paper presents the numerical and experimental evaluation of a vertical‐rocking isolation (VRI). This evaluation is done by 1‐D shaking table tests performed on a full‐scale legged storage tank of 3000‐liters capacity and its representation through a simple yet representative rigid lumped‐mass model approach. The isolation system setup consisted of four ISO3D‐2G devices, each one placed on each leg of the tank, which uses high‐damping natural rubber to generate the restoring and dissipative forces. The ISO3D‐2G device is vertically flexible and laterally rigid, enabling the isolation mechanism of the rocking motion of the tank. The experiments were carried out using three white noise for the system identification and 17 ground motions inputs for the system validation. The measured variables included the lateral acceleration and displacement of the tank, and the vertical and rotational behavior of the isolation interface. The identification results showed a vertical‐rotational coupled fundamental mode that is highly dependent on the amplitude of deformation, with a period varying from 0.5 to more than 1 s, depending on the intensity of the motion. The maximum displacement of the tank at the top remained below 13 cm with total accelerations of nearly 0.3 g, both for motions with Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) values ranging from 0.3 to 0.8 g. The mean maximum values were predicted with the simplified model with errors of less than 10% and 21% for displacements and accelerations, respectively. Finally, the results show that the behavior of vertical‐rocking isolated structures can be predicted by simplified models with reasonable errors and that the development of simple design guidelines and equations for VRI systems is possible.