Case Studies

NTT Facilities built Yure-Moni after the Great East Japan Earthquake to assess building safety objectively. The fanless BX-T1000 BOX Computer now runs the service at about 200 locations with no machine failures since the redesign.

Overview

NTT Facilities combines engineering and ICT skills to support buildings in a country where earthquakes are a serious threat. Its Yure-Moni system places dedicated structural health monitoring accelerometers on each floor, combines the readings with structural design data and estimates the risk level of every floor in near real time. Because managers may be away when a quake hits, the system also sends email notifications.

Challenge

After the 2011 earthquake, owners of ultra-high-rise buildings worried about strong, prolonged shaking on upper floors. “We were frustrated by the lack of an objective way to demonstrate it,” recalled Takeshi Matsushita, Manager of the Service Development Division, Service Innovation Department. Interviews with owners confirmed demand, and development began. The NTT Group’s high-precision seismometers were too expensive to offer customers, so engineers developed a dedicated accelerometer, and Yure-Moni launched after about two and a half years.

Several years later problems emerged. The edge computer was an office laptop that sometimes became unstable. “The system was not designed to operate 24/7,” Matsushita noted. It was rebooted automatically every day, which could coincide with an earthquake, and its parts wore out often. At the same time, demand grew for cloud-based visualization alongside email alerts.

Solution

The team switched to an industrial computer, judging candidates on stability and durability, compact size for varied installation spaces, and cost performance. The development and operations teams unanimously chose the BX-T1000 BOX Computer. Before adoption, an NTT Group research laboratory tested it on a triaxial shake table that reproduced real earthquake motion, including shaking recorded during the Great East Japan Earthquake. It passed and was officially approved.

Results

Replacing the old computer with the fanless, compact BX-T1000 went smoothly and eliminated the reboot concern. The cloud-enabled Yure-Moni now operates at approximately 200 locations, with no machine failures since the redesign and far less need for on-site support. After several large earthquakes, many building users said they were relieved to know their buildings were safe.

Next, NTT Facilities plans to assess risk for specific walls or pillars and link Yure-Moni with other IoT sensors. Matsushita, a licensed first-class architect and first-class structural design architect, plans to keep using the BOX Computer after scheduled OS changes.

Contec products used

• BOX Computer BX-T1000

Originally published by Contec Co., Ltd. at contec.com.