Investigation of dynamic properties of long-span cable-stayed bridges based on one-year monitoring data under normal operating condition

Abstract

Environmental factors, such as temperature, traffic, and wind, play an important role on the variations of dynamic properties of long-span cable-stayed bridges. The dynamic characteristics of Sutong Cable-Stayed Bridge (SCB), including acceleration and strain responses as well as modal frequencies, are investigated using one-year continuous monitoring data under operating conditions by the structural health monitoring system. The in situ wind characteristics and structural temperature behavior of SCB are also analyzed. More than 99% of the wind speed values are smaller than 16 m/s; and the largest temperature variation of the main girder exceeds 60 °C. Besides, acceleration and strain, root mean square (RMS) data are both normalized using the Z-score standardization method. Relation analysis between the normalized acceleration and strain RMS values is conducted based on the time-history comparison and linear least square fitting. Results show that both of the processed acceleration and strain RMS values could properly describe the variation trend of the traffic load, although variation amplitudes of the two normalized parameters differ from each other. In addition, one-year continuous modal frequencies of SCB are identified using Hilbert–Huang transform method. Variability analysis of the structural modal frequencies due to environmental temperature and operational traffics is then conducted. Results show that temperature is the most important environmental factor for vertical and torsional modal frequencies. The traffic load is the second critical factor especially for the fundamental vertical frequency of SCB. Research results could provide references for damage detection and safety evaluation for similar long-span cable-stayed bridges.