Sensing methods in civil engineering for an efficient construction management Christian U. Grosse 1 ; Christoph Gehlen 1 ; Steven D. Glaser 2 1 Materialprüfungsanstalt Universität Stuttgart, Postfach: 801140, D-70511 Stuttgart, Germany. E-mail: christian.grosse@mpa.uni-stuttgart.de 2 Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Abstract: Sensing methods including Non-destructive testing and monitoring tech- niques are fundamental tools for performing an efficient condition management sys- tem for structures in service. They can on one hand support regular visual inspec- tions and help on the other side to assess the actual condition and performance of a building. These methods provide reliable data for the stakeholders to estimate the necessity for current and future investments into a structure. The main purpose of a monitoring system in civil structures is to support activities of engineers in doing structural assessment. A monitoring technique which is pre- sented consists of a wireless sensor network using different types of sensors includ- ing MEMS. Wireless sensor networks (WSN) can be used to monitor a certain re- gion of a structure providing data about different physical measures. Some properties to be measured in-situ are the Eigenvibrations of the structure, humidity and tem- perature outside and inside the structure, unusual stress and strain, and the detection of cracks and other deteriorations. An embedded sensor system is developed to ac- quire the structural condition and a wireless network propagates the sensor data to- wards a common base station where further analysis is performed. Keywords: Non-destructive testing, monitoring, structural health, sensing, public private partnership contracts Introduction Continuous structural health monitoring should provide data from a structure to bet- ter understand its structural performance and to predict its durability and remaining life time. In particular, the understanding of the structural performance becomes im- portant at bridges that are more and more confronted with higher axle loads and