On 2 May, the IJkdijk foundation and the participating sensor and data parties signed an agreement to jointly carry out a new validation test, the all-in-one sensor validation test. Research institute Deltares will act as project manager as well as scientific manager.

All–in-one sensoring
This concerns the all-in-one sensor validation experiment and various sensors will then be tested. This experiment does not focus on one specific failure mechanism, as was the case with macro stability and piping, but on several mechanisms that can occur simultaneously in a dike. For these tests, the focus is on the forecasting capacity of full service sensor systems: are the sensors able to predict the collapse of the dike before it happens?

Construction work will start in May and in August and September, new tests will be carried out.

Desing of the experiment
For this project, Deltares has designed the experiment and the dikes. After conclusion of the project, Deltares will write the final report. In addition, Deltares will act as supervisor during the construction of the dikes and see to it that the dikes will be built accurately.

Deltares will furthermore see to a reference monitoring. Commissioned by the IJkdijk foundation, Deltares will also be in charge of the overall project management.

Sensor- and data parties
Several companies are participating in the test to check the forecasting value of their sensors. In addition, four parties are focusing specifically on the collection and processing of data provided by the sensors.

The following companies are participating in the test: Inventec, Siemens Nederland, Landustrie Sneek, Koenders Instruments, Alert Solutions, Volker Wessel Telecom Infra, 2M Sensors, INTECH Dike Security Systems, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, Empec services, AGT Group, TenCate Geosynthetics, StabiAlert, Nelen & Schuurmans and Fugro GeoServices.

Sensor network to forecast dike failures
The IJkdijk is a facility in the Netherlands to test dikes and to develop sensor network technologies for early warning systems. Furthermore the sensor network will be able to detect many water-related environmental factors that affect the health of humans such as pollution and biological changes. Disasters on rivers and coastal waters are also detected.

In studies of dike stability, about eighty dikes will be destroyed and establish, ultimately, a relation between the sensor readings and the future of the dike. Hence the (in Dutch) good sounding name IJkdijk: dijk=dike and ijk is from the Dutch word ijken=to calibrate (models). Clearly the most urgent goal here is to forecast dike failures.

More information
IJdijk Foundation
Groningen, the Netherlands
050 521 44 66
www.ijkdijk.nl

Deltares
Delft, the Netherlands
+31 88 335 8273
www.deltares.nl