Synthetik awarded US Navy contract to enhance subterranean site condition assessments.

Synthetik has been awarded a contract by the US Navy to combine modeling and simulation, synthetic data, and machine learning for enhancement of subterranean site condition assessments.

Despite recent advances in seismic imaging and tomography, obtaining an accurate map of geophysical features is still very much an open problem. This can result in substantial additional project costs and delays, and these issues are particularly acute for offshore sites in ports and shipyards.

In response, Synthetik are developing a seismic geophysical assessment solution to enable non-destructive subterranean assessment of void and pile locations and dimensions (up to 80 feet of penetration) for piers, wharfs, relieving-platforms, and other shipyard-type structures) for initial load restriction or load capacity planning during Port Damage Repair and Port/Harbor/Shipyard assessment scenarios, when electromagnetic contract methods fail due to salt-saturated soils and water.

Currently, those inspecting waterfront facilities (such as piers, wharfs, relieving-platforms, and other shipyard-type structures) for structural and soil voids or support-pile details cannot assess the subterranean structural components or defects which they cannot see. Also, many geophysical assessment methods, which are applicable inland, are impeded in part or whole by typical waterfront facilities site conditions such as soil types, geology, construction materials, construction configurations, onsite electrical interference, etc.

The geophysical assessment sensors which receive the seismic energy are geophones (hydrophones in waterborne surveys) or commonly referred to as "phones” and are typically configured for the geological site conditions of the average inland geophysicist rather than for the needs of those working on the waterfront and littoral regions. Therefore, there is a need and room for innovation within the materials, dimensions, and configuration for prototyping specialized geophone devices; and for evaluating within salt-saturated sediments and other structural configurations typical of waterfront and shipyard facilities.

The US Navy’s requirements include improvements in both the prototyping of specialized geophone devices and the accompanying AI/ML software improvements to the seismograph data. The related technical challenges include limited access to real-world facilities and limited (yet available) real-world subterranean defect data. Therefore, there is an opportunity to simulate the subterranean geophysics of the subject scenarios.

Synthetik’s technical solution will result in at least a 30% improvement in a user’s ability to correctly determine subterranean void and pile locations and dimensions, up to a depth of 80 feet of soil penetration. These improvements will come from a combination of improving the sensors and the AI/ML interpretation of seismograph data.

Initially Synthetik shall focus on the technical feasibility of improving and prototyping specialized geophone device(s) for geophysical evaluation within salt-saturated sediments and other structural configurations typical of waterfront and shipyard facilities; for finding: void location(s) and dimensions, subterranean pile location(s) and dimensions, to include driven pile depth; and for proposing the targeted level of improvement in just the geophone sensors.

Subsequent work shall focus on the application innovative AI/ML to the traditional geophysical assessment seismograph data, including 1) evaluation of the improvement generated by leveraging the AI/ML interpretation/clarification of the seismograph data, and 2) quantifying to what extent the ML training data can utilize simulation/synthetic data versus real-world training data.

The expected transition of the product within the Government will include field demonstration of Synthetik’s technology for one actual timber-constructed relieving platform shipyard wharf/berth (for void location and classification) and one concrete-constructed convention pier (for driven pile depths); where actual gross defects may or may not exist, and where some aspect of the process may be simulation-based, with either simulated or real-world replicated voids, defects, debris, rubble, and/or other realistic anomalies.

In addition to the Navy’s clear requirement for this technology, there is great commercial value in automating the interpretation of seismograph data for waterfront facilities, namely shipyard and port/harbor infrastructure.