Sensor placement technique and GUI System for monitoring the bridge girder

Abstract

Sensor is a device which receives a signal and converts it into electrical form. Wireless based sensors technology has been shown the potential to serve as low cost to substitute traditional cable based monitoring and increasing the facility of the real time bridge monitoring. How ever, bridge monitoring systems using the wireless sensor is still malfunctioning due to the lack of the proper sensor placement techniques. In addition, the improper sensor placement on the bridge girder increase the total number of sensors and the overall cost of installation and maintenance of bridge health monitoring system. In this paper, the sensor placement technique was developed based on the priority of the flexure and shear behavior of the girder; to optimize the sensor used on the girder and to minimize the overall cost of the bridge girder monitoring system. GUI system was developed using Matlab toolbox for monitoring the bridge girder continuously. GUI system would be helpful to evaluate the bridge girder condition based on the monitoring data of wireless based sensor technology.