Bridge Damage Detection Based on Vibration Data: Past and New Developments

Joan R Casas,John James Moughty

doi:10.3389/fbuil.2017.00004

Abstract

Overtime, the structural condition of bridges tends to decline due to a number of degradation processes, such as creep, corrosion and cyclic loading, among others. Considerable research has been conducted over the years to assess and monitor the rate of such degradation with the aim of reducing structural uncertainty. Traditionally, vibration-based damage detection techniques in bridges have focused on monitoring changes to modal parameters and subsequently comparing them to numerical models. These traditional techniques are generally time consuming and can often mistake changing environmental and operational conditions as structural damage. Recent research has seen the emergence of more advanced computational techniques that not only allow the assessment of noisier and more complex data, but also allow research to veer away from monitoring changes in modal parameters alone. This paper presents a review of the current state-of-the-art developments in vibration based damage detection in small to medium span bridges with particular focus on the utilization of advanced computational methods that avoid traditional damage detection pitfalls. A case study of the S101 Bridge is also presented to test the damage sensitivity a chosen methodology.

Highlights

The identification of structural damage in bridges is a research topic that has generated significant attention over the years
The results showed that the interpolation damage detection method (IDDM) is capable of detecting and locating damage consistently; its performance is dependent on the threshold value chosen and on the geometry of sensors
It can be concluded that there is no outright consensus among researchers regarding which vibration-based damage indicator or damage detection method is most suited to bridge structures

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The identification of structural damage in bridges is a research topic that has generated significant attention over the years. If no undamaged data are available, a proposed variation on the original method will allow unsupervised damage detection to be conducted It assumes that, for an undamaged state, all sources of vibration will cause all locations to produce the same interpolation error variation. A similar methodology is applied in the damage detection study carried out in the international cable-stayed bridge over the Guadiana river where they use pattern recognition and data fusion methods In this case, the raw data coming from the sensors are not due to vibration of the bridge but comes from the acquisition of continuous streams of information. Kaloop and Hu (2015) assessed some effective damage detection and localization algorithms based on the pattern recognition methodologies to detect structural changes using vibration data collected from the Yonghe Bridge.

72.5 Damage to load-bearing load-bearing components and

Findings

CONCLUSION