FCC Construcción is participating in the development of the R&D&I project Optical Systems for Active Management of Transient Risks (SORT-i Project), financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the RETOS-COLABORACIÓN 2014 (collaboration challenges 2014) call for proposals. Also participating are GEOCISA, CARTIF and AITEMIN.

This project's main goal consists of the development of tools based on optical systems and new technologies for the identification, monitoring and management of structural risks of buildings and infrastructure in an intelligent, automatic and telemetric manner, as a means to maximise safety and minimise the risks of physical damage in high potential situations of structural collapse.

When a natural disaster (earthquake, flood...) or an accident (crash, fire...) occurs and has an impact on a building or infrastructure, a high risk of structural collapse is caused. The collapse or unplanned loss of integrity or stability of the structural systems implicates a great possibility that personal damages may occur, both to specialist staff and to civilians.

Subsequently a set of measures must be proposed for the rehabilitation or repair of the building or infrastructure. However, at this time the level of structural instability may cause non-detected pathologies or weather conditions (rain, winds...) to intensify the structural risks. Therefore, in this phase the necessity to monitor and control existing risks is detected.

SORT-i aims to provide a solution for each one of these problems:

• Risk identification: optical systems will be developed for the identification of risks in areas with difficult access: SORT-i mobile sensors.
• Risk assessment: SORT-i intelligent telemetric nodes are developed which are based on optical technologies that meet the following competencies and requirements: external and remote instrumentation, monitoring in real time and with low-cost criteria (the actual generalised implementation of the new technologies must be sustainable and viable)
• Risk management: a management system will be developed that provides detailed information for making timely decisions relative to the integrity of the structure.

It is also worth pointing out that given the interest for the sector representing the project; it also has support from the Spanish Technology Construction Platform (PTEC) and the Spanish Technology Platform on Industrial Safety (PESI), as well as from the Institute of Advanced Production Technologies (ITAP).