One million brilliant white tiles clad the 65m-tall precast concrete roof of the 43-year-old Sydney Opera House—Jørn Utzon’s Modernist tour de force overlooking the Australian city’s harbour. The glazed ceramic tiles need to be hand-checked, or tapped, every five years by specialist engineers, who abseil down the roof “sails” looking for changes in their sound or appearance. Now, thanks to the combined efforts of the opera house, the Getty Foundation, the University of Sydney and the engineering and design group Arup, this expensive, vertigo- inducing process is a step closer to becoming a thing of the past.

Researchers have added a microphone and sensors to the tile-tapping hammers to improve the quality of information gathered from these tap tests. They are also looking to the field of robotics to see if the inspection process could become fully automated within the next five years......Continue Reading

Top image: Close-up view to the roof tiles of Sydney Opera House. Image Wikimedia Commons

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