Implementation of Structural Health Monitoring for Movable Bridges

Abstract

This paper discusses how the current practice of bridge inspection and assessment can be complemented with long-term structural health monitoring (SHM) data within a bridge asset management framework. A brief discussion of asset management is presented with data used in current practice and complementary data from SHM. To use any data in a timely and effective manner requires an information management system that considers all constituents, from bridge owners to decision makers to users. Thus a multilayered bridge information system that considers multiple end users and includes a broad range of data sources is presented. After discussion of the proposed system, the paper presents long-term SHM data and inspection and maintenance data from a movable bridge in Florida. Dynamic data from long-term monitoring were analyzed with time and frequency domain methods as well as statistical methods, which were feasible with large amounts of data. The results of the analysis showed that certain anomalies at critical components of the bridge (e.g., span-lock and gearbox mechanisms) were captured. It was also shown that the issues identified with SHM data were related to the operation and maintenance of the bridge, as described in its maintenance logs. Integration of monitoring systems with routine maintenance applications could be expected to provide timely and effective bridge management.