Design and Application of Bridge Deck Alignment Monitoring and Early-Warning System for Beipan River Bridge of Shanghai- Kunming Passenger Dedicated Railway Line

Abstract

Track regularity is the guarantee of traffic safety and comfort performance of high speed railway. Inevitably, bridges always suffer from uneven settlement due to the effects of train loads, temperature, concrete creep and foundation deformation, etc., which bring the rise of maintenance cost and probably higher safety risks. Regarding the necessity of bridge deck alignment monitoring, the advantages/disadvantages and serviceability of several conventional deformation monitoring methods were discussed in present work based on Beipan River bridge of Hukun Passenger Dedicated Railway Line, which is actually ranked as the largest main span arch bridge of high speed railway all over the world. A design scheme of bridge deck alignment monitoring and early-warning system during operation period was raised. The layout scheme of system measurement points, system power supply, accuracy requirement, data transmission, operational safety assessment and early-warning were specifically discussed according to the structural characteristics of Beipan River bridge. To verify the reliability of monitoring data, a comparison work between automatic monitoring data and manual monitoring data was conducted. The practical application cases indicated that the monitoring system has the characteristics of high precision and low cost and it can assure the running safety of operation trains and provide scientific evidences for decision-making of daily maintenance and management work (e.g. when is the best time to adjust the alignment of track and how much of the accurate quantities should be adjusted). In addition, the monitoring data can also be useful for grasping the characteristics and evolution law of shrinkage and creep of this special kind of bridge, and providing strong and useful technical supports during designing and researching processes.