The Role of Covariances in the Deformation Analysis Applied to Geodetic Monitoring of Structures

Abstract

: In recent years, there were huge scale accidents due to dam failure in Brazil, which has motivated the increase in researches related to deformation analysis applied to geodetic monitoring. In displacements analysis, it´s considered isolated coordinates of the object points or the positional resultants of the points, but the covariance between the coordinates should be taken in account. However, don’t employ the coordinate’s covariances can result in both false positives and false negatives in relation to the more realistic scenario, that is, the multivariate case. In this way, this study presents simulated and real data examples that demonstrate the importance of covariances in the deformation analysis applied to geodetic monitoring. The examples analyzed demonstrate the occurrence of both false positives and false negatives of the univariate congruence test in relation to the multivariate congruence test. Thus, in order to make decisions in a more realistic scenario, it is recommended to apply deformation analysis in a multivariate context.