In the 19th century, the Ruhr region became Europe's largest conurbation through economic expansion characterized by coal mining and steel production. The industrial complexes, especially the imposing Zollverein in Essen, are still identity-forming landmarks and UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These industrial monuments, originally not designed for permanent existence, require special preservation measures after decommissioning. The project aims to develop a sensor-based, data-driven condition monitoring system using artificial intelligence (AI). The industrial complex's targeted structural health monitoring (SHM) will be realized by combining AI-based semantic segmentation and metrological damage characterization. This enables a proactive evaluation of preservation strategies for the cultural heritage. The digital detection and automatic assessment of the damage state is the basis for a systematic damage characterization. Although the focus is on iron-based materials, the derived implementation rules are material-independent and target high-modern objects' diversity and conservation.

Duration: 2024 until 2026