The Zhuhai Opera House has an external structure consisting of a type of spatial steel, where the stress of steel elements varies with the ambient temperature. A structural health monitoring system was implemented at Zhuhai Opera House, and the temperatures and stresses of the structures were monitored in real time. The relationship between the stress distribution and temperature variations was analysed by measuring the temperature and stresses of the steel elements. In addition to measurements of the structure stresses and temperatures, further simulation analysis was carried out to provide the detailed relationship between the stress distributions and temperature variations. The limited temperature measurements were used to simulate the structure temperature distribution, and the stress distributions of all steel elements of the structure were analysed by building a finite element model of the Zhuhai Opera House spatial steel structure. This study aims to reveal the stress distributions of steel elements in a real-world project based on temperature variations, and to supply a basic database for the optimal construction time of a spatial steel structure. This will not only provide convenient, rapid and safe early warnings and decision-making for the spatial steel structure construction and operation processes, but also improve the structural safety and construction accuracy of steel space structures.

Negative stiffness dampers (NSDs) have been proven an efficient solution to vibration control of stay cables. Although previous studies usually assumed a linear negative stiffness behavior of NSDs, many negative stiffness devices produce negative stiffness with nonlinear behavior. This paper systematically evaluates the impact of nonlinearity in negative stiffness on vibration control performance for stay cables. A linearization method based on energy equivalent principle is proposed, and subsequently, the impact of two types of nonlinear stiffness, namely, displacement hardening and softening stiffness, is evaluated. Through the Hilbert transform (HT) of free vibration responses, the effects of nonlinear stiffness of an NSD on the modal frequencies, damping ratios and frequency response functions of a stay cable is also investigated. The HT analysis results validate the accuracy of the linearization method.

Taking three types of bridge bearings with diameter being 100 mm as examples, the theoretical analysis, the experimental research as well as the numerical simulation of these bearings is conducted. Since the normal compression and shear machines cannot be applied to the small-size bearings, an improved equipment to test the properties of these bearings is proposed and fabricated. Besides, the simulation of the bearings is conducted based on the explicit finite element software ANSYS/LS-DYNA, and some parameters of the bearings are modified in the finite element model to reduce the computation cost effectively. Results show that all the research methods are capable of revealing the fundamental properties of the small-size bearings, and a combined use of these methods can better catch both the integral properties and the inner detailed mechanical behaviors of the bearings.

A number of sensing techniques have been implemented for detecting defects in civil infrastructures instead of onsite human inspections in structural health monitoring. However, the issue of faults in sensors has not received much attention. This issue may lead to incorrect interpretation of data and false alarms. To overcome these challenges, this article presents a deep learning-based method with a new architecture of Stateful Long Short Term Memory Neural Networks (S-LSTM NN) for detecting sensor fault without going into details of the fault features. As LSTMs are capable of learning data features automatically, and the proposed method works without an accurate mathematical model. The detection of four types of sensor faults are studied in this paper. Non-stationary acceleration responses of a three-span continuous bridge when under operational conditions are studied. A deep network model is applied to the measured bridge data with estimation to detect the sensor fault. Another set of sensor output data is used to supervise the network parameters and backpropagation algorithm to fine tune the parameters to establish a deep self-coding network model. The response residuals between the true value and the predicted value of the deep S-LSTM network was statistically analyzed to determine the fault threshold of sensor. Experimental study with a cable-stayed bridge further indicated that the proposed method is robust in the detection of the sensor fault.

The stability of cutting slope influences the safety of railway operation, and how to identify the stability of the slope quickly and determine the rational monitoring plan is a pressing problem at present. In this study, the attribute recognition model of risk assessment for high cutting slope stability in the heavy haul railway is established based on attribute mathematics theory, followed by the consequent monitoring scheme design. Firstly, based on comprehensive analysis on the risk factors of heavy haul railway loess slope, collapsibility, tectonic feature, slope shape, rainfall, vegetation conditions, train speed are selected as the indexes of the risk assessment, and the grading criteria of each index is established. Meanwhile, the weights of the assessment indexes are determined by AHP judgment matrix. Secondly, The attribute measurement functions are given to compute attribute measurement of single index and synthetic attribute, and the attribute recognition model was used to assess the risk of a typical heavy haul railway loess slope, Finally, according to the risk assessment results, the monitoring content and method of this loess slope were determined to avoid geological disasters and ensure the security of the railway infrastructure. This attribute identification- risk assessment- monitoring design mode could provide an effective way for the risk assessment and control of heavy haul railway in the loess plateau.

The evaluation theory of reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS) as a mature theory of state evaluation in the railway engineering, can be well used to the evaluation, management, and maintenance of complicated structure like the long-span bridge structures on the high-speed railway. Taking a typical steel-truss arch bridge on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, the Nanjing Dashengguan Yangtze River Bridge, this paper developed a new method of state evaluation for the existing steel-truss arch high-speed railway bridge. The evaluation framework of serving state for the bridge structure is presented based on the RAMS theory. According to the failure-risk, safety/availability, maintenance of bridge members, the state evaluation method of each monitoring item is presented. The weights of the performance items and the monitoring items in all evaluation levels are obtained using the analytic hierarchy process. Finally, the comprehensive serving state of bridge structure is hierarchical evaluated.

In order to provide a novel strategy for long-span bridge health monitoring system design, this paper proposes a novel ultimate bearing capacity ratios based bridge internal force monitoring design method. The bridge ultimate bearing capacity analysis theories are briefly described. Then, based on the ultimate bearing capacity of the structural component, the component ultimate bearing capacity ratio, the uniformity of ultimate bearing capacity ratio, and the reference of component ultimate bearing capacity ratio are defined. Based on the defined indices, the high bearing components can then be found, and the internal force monitoring system can be designed. Finally, the proposed method is applied to the bridge health monitoring system design of the second highway bridge of Wuhu Yangtze river. Through the ultimate bearing capacity analysis of the bridge in eight load conditions, the high bearing components are found based on the proposed method. The bridge internal force monitoring system is then preliminary designed. The results show that the proposed method can provide quantitative criteria for sensors layout. The monitoring components based on the proposed method are consistent with the actual failure process of the bridge, and can reduce the monitoring of low bearing components. For the second highway bridge of Wuhu Yangtze river, only 59 components are designed to be monitored their internal forces. Therefore, the bridge internal force monitoring system based on the ultimate bearing capacity ratio can decrease the number of monitored components and the cost of the whole monitoring system.

Horizontal displacement of high-rise building is an essential index for assessing the structural performance and safety. In this paper, a novel inclinometer-based method is proposed to address this issue and an algorithm based on three spline interpolation principle is presented to estimate the horizontal displacement of high-rise buildings. In this method, the whole structure is divided into different elements by different measured points. The story drift angle curve of each element is modeled as a three spline curve. The horizontal displacement can be estimated after integration of the story drift angle curve. A numerical example is designed to verify the proposed method and the result shows this method can effectively estimate the horizontal displacement with high accuracy. After that, this method is applied to a practical slender structure - Shanghai Tower. Nature frequencies identification and deformation monitoring are conducted from the signal of inclinometers. It is concluded that inclinometer-based technology can not only be used for spectrum analysis and modal identification, but also for monitoring deformation of the whole structure. This inclinometer-based technology provides a novel method for future structural health monitoring.

This paper presents the structural performance monitoring of an urban footbridge located in Hangzhou, China. The structural health monitoring (SHM) system is designed and implemented for the footbridge to monitor the structural responses of the footbridge and to ensure the structural safety during the period of operation. The monitoring data of stress and displacement measured by the fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based sensors installed at the critical locations are used to analyze and assess the operation performance of the footbridge. A linear regression method is applied to separate the temperature effect from the stress monitoring data measured by the FBG-based strain sensors. In addition, the static vertical displacement of the footbridge measured by the FBG-based hydrostatic level gauges are presented and compared with the dynamic displacement remotely measured by a machine vision-based measurement system. Based on the examination of the monitored stress and displacement data, the structural safety evaluation is executed in combination with the defined condition index.

Transmission tower-line systems are commonly slender and generally possess a small stiffness and low structural damping. They are prone to impulsive excitations induced by cable rupture and may experience strong vibration. Excessive deformation and vibration of a transmission tower-line system subjected to cable rupture may induce a local destruction and even failure event. A little work has yet been carried out to evaluate the performance of transmission tower-line systems in mountain areas subjected to cable rupture. In addition, the control for cable rupture induced vibration of a transmission tower-line system has not been systematically conducted. In this regard, the dynamic response analysis of a transmission tower-line system in mountain areas subjected to cable rupture is conducted. Furthermore, the feasibility of using viscous fluid dampers to suppress the cable rupture-induced vibration is also investigated. The three dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model of a transmission tower-line system is first established and the mathematical model of a mountain is developed to describe the equivalent scale and configuration of a mountain. The model of a tower-line-mountain system is developed by taking a real transmission tower-line system constructed in China as an example. The mechanical model for the dynamic interaction between the ground and transmission lines is proposed and the mechanical model of a viscous fluid damper is also presented. The equations of motion of the transmission tower-line system subjected to cable rupture without/with viscous fluid dampers are established. The field measurement is carried out to verify the analytical FE model and determine the damping ratios of the example transmission tower-line system. The dynamic analysis of the tower-line system is carried out to investigate structural performance under cable rupture and the validity of the proposed control approach based on viscous fluid dampers is examined. The made observations demonstrate that cable rupture may induce strong structural vibration and the implementation of viscous fluid dampers with optimal parameters can effectively suppress structural responses.