A Computer Vision Application for Measuring the Deflection in a Two-dimensional View of Reinforced Concrete Beams

A novel computer vision application is developed to measure the deflection of two-dimensional (2D) reinforced concrete structural members. Eight beam samples, with dimensions of 160 mm x 150 mm x 1400 mm are loaded and simulated under a four-point loading test until failure using a reaction framework machine. A camera is fixed at the center front view of the concrete beams to capture the deflection of the samples while testing. In each test, a dial indicator is installed and the maximum deflection is manually recorded. Based on the results, the maximum deflection values recorded by the proposed application obtained an average error of 18.38 % when compared to the manual measured results. This indicates that computer vision-based application can provide a beam-wide scale deflection performance, compared to the traditional point-based deflection reading. This study paves a new possibility of aiding manual measurements of concrete beams and all other structural studies.