Investigation of the applicability of current bridge health monitoring technology

Abstract

Integrated health monitoring (HM) systems have been designed and installed in some long-span bridges around the world. One of the fundamental objectives of a bridge HM system is to gain a comprehensive knowledge of the structural condition, and usually it is required that early-stage damage in a bridge is detected within the monitored information. Yet the performance of the HM technology has not been evaluated in practice. The focus of this paper is to investigate the applicability of the current bridge HM technology for abnormality alarming. The deterioration and defects found from 16 cable-stayed bridges are summarized, and possible damage scenarios are simulated with a finite element model of a cable-stayed bridge. The changes in the static deformation and stress distribution as well as the dynamic characteristics of the bridge model due to damage are analysed. By comparison of the damage-caused changes in the structural behavior with the ability of the current monitoring techniques and the environmental effects, the workability of a typical bridge HM system is revealed. This may be helpful for the development of monitoring techniques and the design of HM systems.