Recent vibration-based structural health monitoring on steel bridges: Systematic literature review

Abstract

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) implementations on infrastructures, including bridges, are currently experiencing a surge in popularity as the favoured solution for preserving structural health. Additionally, the availability of a diverse array of SHM systems is a direct response to the increasing range of structures, the necessity to target specific damage mechanisms, the various monitoring objectives, the utilization of different sensor technologies, and the practical aspects of implementation. Hence, the research domain is challenged with the excessive state of subareas and integrations of techniques used which induced the need to organize the known knowledge about SHM practicalities, focusing on steel superstructure bridges and bridges with steel as main component. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of this field and provide researchers with a clear perspective on SHM, it is essential to familiarize ourselves with the techniques that have been employed. To that aim, a thorough search was undertaken to locate publications dealing with terms such as ‘‘structural health monitoring,” ‘‘vibration-based SHM,” and ‘‘steel bridge/bridges”. Scopus databases were checked for articles on vibration-based structural health monitoring for steel bridges and PRISMA procedure was conducted to apply systematic review process. The result highlights the profile of the publication trends under the topic throughout the year and the research phenomenon based on country of origin. Then, the result also reviews the studied steel bridge type to explore the propensity of vibration-based practicality based on structural configuration. Then, the heart of this paper, which is the third part reviews the methods that has been investigated by past researcher in the work of bridge vibration characterisation for SHM. The future of vibration-based methods is potentially tremendous as structure characterisation solution as it provides the state-of-the-art data-driven measures towards damage detection. However, the raise of SHM robustness has simultaneously raised the room for advancement towards achieving precise quantification and interpretation from vibration-based techniques. The room for advancements raised in this study has proven our one step forward to provide future studies of ways it can expand the vibration-based frontiers.