WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK BASED BRIDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR INFRASTRUCTURE ASSET MANAGEMENT

Social infrastructure is the basis of public welfare and should be recognized and managed as important assets. Bridge is one of the most important infrastructures to be managed systematically because the impact of the failure is critical. It is essential to monitor the performance of bridges in order to manage them as an asset. But current analytical methods such as predictive modeling and structural analysis are very complicated and difficult to use in practice. To apply these methods, structural and material condition data collection should be performed in each element of bridge. But it is difficult to collect these detailed data in large numbers and various kinds of bridges. Therefore, it is necessary to collect data of major measurement items and predict the life of bridges roughly with advanced information technologies. When certain measurement items reach predefined limits in the monitoring bridges, precise performance measurement will be done by detailed site measurement. This paper describes the selection of major measurement items that can represent the tendency of bridge life and introduces automated bridge data collection test-bed using wireless sensor network technology. The following will be major parts of this paper: 1) Examining the features of conventional bridge management system and data collection method 2) Mileage concept as a bridge life indicator and measuring method of the indicator 3) Test-bed of automated and real-time based bridge life indicator monitoring system using wireless sensor network