Laser Scanning Solutions: Arnold & O’Sheridan’s Story

As discussed last week, Laser Scanning technology is revolutionizing many aspects of surveying and applied measurement. Packer Engineering, an engineering firm with a veteran accident reconstruction department, realized the advantages of adding high precision laser scanning to complete their investigations. Another engineering firm, Arnold & O’Sheridan, found that acquiring a laser scanner allowed them access to new accident reconstruction business opportunities.

According to Ron Luskin, their Director of Business Development and Marketing, their purchase was a deliberate one, aimed to adopt the technology early. “I’d been watching scanners in trade publications and realized there would be a demand.” Luskin said. Interestingly, Arnold & O’Sheridan acquired a scanner to help with more conventional work and ended up getting a forensic job because they had a scanner. The project in question was an under construction seven-story building with a 100-foot by 250-foot footprint that collapsed when it had been built up to five stories. Two workers died. Two years after the collapse, project stakeholders were looking for a way to get construction restarted, and all parties agreed that a thorough building assessment, with scanned data, was a good start. The resulting deliverables would be distributed to all parties.

The control scheme began with a conventional total station network run across the street from, and completely around, the building. Total stations were also used to extend the network into the building, and up to each floor as work progressed. Each floor took many scans to complete and were registered conventionally, but the abundance of identifiable control points allowed the crew to perform preliminary checks and process all the data later. Without a scanner, documenting the entire building in its collapsed state would not be possible. Survey Manager Frank Thousand commented that “It would have taken a year to do this by other means.” Not to mention that in a partially collapsed building, safety is certainly a factor, so the less time spent in a weakened structure, the better.

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