• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1-9
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• 2016

Railroad bridges account for 25% of the entire high-speed rail network. Railway bridges are subject to gradual structural degradation or fatigue accumulation due to consistent and repeating excitation by fast moving trains. Wireless sensing technology has opened up a new avenue for bridge health monitoring owing to its low-cost, high fidelity, and multiple sensing capability. On the other hand, measuring the transient response during train passage is quite challenging that the current wireless sensor system cannot be applied due to the intrinsic time delay of the sensor network. Therefore, this paper presents a framework for monitoring such transient responses with wireless sensing systems using 1) real-time excessive vibration monitoring through ultra-low-power MEMS accelerometers, and 2) post-event time synchronization scheme. The ultra-low power accelerometer continuously monitors the vibration and trigger network when excessive vibrations are detected. The entire network of wireless smart sensors starts sensing through triggering and the post-event time synchronization is conducted to compensate for the time error on the measured responses. The results of this study highlight the potential of detecting the impact load and triggering the entire network, as well as the effectiveness of the post-event time synchronized scheme for compensating for the time error. A numerical and experimental study was carried out to validate the proposed sensing hardware and time synchronization method.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.185-192
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• 2011

A CFRP (Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Plastic) strengthening method being widely used to increase the load-carrying capacity of structures is very suitable for existing bridge structures. However, not only flexure and shear failures but also debonding failure might be additionally occured in reinforced concrete(RC) beams strengthened with the CFRP plates. The CFRP debonding failure would cause a brittle fracture of the beam. Therefore, health monitoring for the CFRP bonding condition is strongly required. In this study, a feasibility of the impedance-based damage detection method using PZT sensors was investigated through a series of experimental studies for realtime structural health monitoring(SHM) for the CFRP laminated concrete structures.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.379-402
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• 2021

Traditional approaches for structural health monitoring (SHM) seldom take ambient uncertainty (temperature, humidity, ambient vibration) into consideration, while their impacts on structural responses are substantial, leading to a possibility of raising false alarms. A few predictors model-based approaches deal with these uncertainties through complex numerical models running online, rendering the SHM approach to be compute-intensive, slow, and sometimes not practical. Also, with model-based approaches, the imperative need for a precise understanding of the structure often poses a problem for not so well understood complex systems. The present study employs a data-based approach coupled with Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) to correlate recorded response time histories under varying temperature conditions to corresponding damage scenarios. EMD decomposes the response signal into a finite set of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). A two-dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (2DCNN) is further trained to associate these IMFs to the respective damage cases. The use of IMFs in place of raw signals helps to reduce the impact of sensor noise while preserving the essential spatio-temporal information less-sensitive to thermal effects and thereby stands as a better damage-sensitive feature than the raw signal itself. The proposed algorithm is numerically tested on a single span bridge under varying temperature conditions for different damage severities. The dynamic strain is recorded as the response since they are frame-invariant and cheaper to install. The proposed algorithm has been observed to be damage sensitive as well as sufficiently robust against measurement noise.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.6 s.52
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• pp.1-8
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• 2006

This paper describes the procedures developing the algorithm for analyzing signals acquired from the Bridge Weigh-in-Motion (BWIM) system installed in Seohae Bridge as a part of the bridge monitoring system. Through the analysis procedure, information about heavy traffics such as weight, speed, and number of axles are attempted to be extracted from time domain strain data of the BWIM system. One of numerous pattern recognition techniques, artificial neural network (ANN) is employed since it can effectively include dynamic effects, bridge-vehicle interaction, etc. A number of vehicle running experiments with sufficient load cases are executed to acquire training and/or test set of ANN. Extracted traffic information can be utilized for developing quantitative database of loading effect. Also, it can contribute to estimate fatigue lift or current health condition, and design truck can be revised based on the database reflecting recent trend of traffic.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.683-698
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• 2015

Railroad bridges form an integral part of railway infrastructure throughout the world. To accommodate increased axel loads, train speeds, and greater volumes of freight traffic, in the presence of changing structural conditions, the load carrying capacity and serviceability of existing bridges must be assessed. One way is through system identification of in-service railroad bridges. To dates, numerous researchers have reported system identification studies with a large portion of their applications being highway bridges. Moreover, most of those models are calibrated at global level, while only a few studies applications have used globally and locally calibrated model. To reach the global and local calibration, both ambient vibration tests and controlled tests need to be performed. Thus, an approach for system identification of a railroad bridge that can be used to assess the bridge in global and local sense is needed. This study presents system identification of a railroad bridge using free vibration data. Wireless smart sensors are employed and provided a portable way to collect data that is then used to determine bridge frequencies and mode shapes. Subsequently, a calibrated finite element model of the bridge provides global and local information of the bridge. The ability of the model to simulate local responses is validated by comparing predicted and measured strain in one of the diagonal members of the truss. This research demonstrates the potential of using measured field data to perform model calibration in a simple and practical manner that will lead to better understanding the state of railroad bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.145-163
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• 2024

The evaluation of dynamic characteristics of bridges under operational traffic loads is a crucial aspect of bridge structural health monitoring. In the vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) system, the vibration responses of bridge exhibit time-varying characteristics. To address this issue, an accurate time-frequency analysis method that combines the autoregressive power spectrum based empirical wavelet transform (AR-EWT) and local maximum synchrosqueezing transform (LMSST) is proposed to identify the time-varying instantaneous frequencies (IFs) of the bridge in the VBI system. The AR-EWT method decomposes the vibration response of the bridge into mono-component signals. Then, LMSST is employed to identify the IFs of each mono-component signal. The AR-EWT combined with the LMSST method (AR-EWT+LMSST) can resolve the problem that LMSST cannot effectively identify the multi-component signals with weak amplitude components. The proposed AR-EWT+LMSST method is compared with some advanced time-frequency analysis techniques such as synchrosqueezing transform (SST), synchroextracting transform (SET), and LMSST. The results demonstrate that the proposed AR-EWT+LMSST method can improve the accuracy of identified IFs. The effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method are validated through a multi-component signal, a VBI numerical model with a four-degree-of-freedom half-car, and a VBI model experiment. The effect of vehicle characteristics, vehicle speed, and road surface roughness on the identified IFs of bridge are investigated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.337-362
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• 2015

This paper presents a feasibility study on structural damage alarming and localization of long-span cable-supported bridges using multi-novelty indices formulated by monitoring-derived modal parameters. The proposed method which requires neither structural model nor damage model is applicable to structures of arbitrary complexity. With the intention to enhance the tolerance to measurement noise/uncertainty and the sensitivity to structural damage, an improved novelty index is formulated in terms of auto-associative neural networks (ANNs) where the output vector is designated to differ from the input vector while the training of the ANNs needs only the measured modal properties of the intact structure under in-service conditions. After validating the enhanced capability of the improved novelty index for structural damage alarming over the commonly configured novelty index, the performance of the improved novelty index for damage occurrence detection of large-scale bridges is examined through numerical simulation studies of the suspension Tsing Ma Bridge (TMB) and the cable-stayed Ting Kau Bridge (TKB) incurred with different types of structural damage. Then the improved novelty index is extended to formulate multi-novelty indices in terms of the measured modal frequencies and incomplete modeshape components for damage region identification. The capability of the formulated multi-novelty indices for damage region identification is also examined through numerical simulations of the TMB and TKB.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.501-523
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• 2016

Electromechanical impedance (EMI) based structural health monitoring is performed by measuring the variation in the impedance due to the structural local damage. The impedance signals are acquired from the piezoelectric patches that are bonded on the structural surface. The impedance variation, which is directly related to the mechanical properties of the structure, indicates the presence of local structural damage. Two traditional EMI-based damage detection methods are based on calculating the difference between the measured impedance signals in the frequency domain from the baseline and the current structures. In this paper, a new structural damage detection approach by analyzing the time domain impedance responses is proposed. The measured time domain responses from the piezoelectric transducers will be used for analysis. With the use of the Time Frequency Autoregressive Moving Average (TFARMA) model, a damage index based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is defined to identify the existence of the structural local damage. Experimental studies on a space steel truss bridge model in the laboratory are conducted to verify the proposed approach. Four piezoelectric transducers are attached at different locations and excited by a sweep-frequency signal. The impedance responses at different locations are analyzed with TFARMA model to investigate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed approach. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach is very sensitive and robust in detecting the bolt damage in the gusset plates of steel truss bridges.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.77-93
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• 2015

The idea of using measured dynamic characteristics for damage detection is attractive because it allows for a global evaluation of the structural health and condition. However, vibration-based damage detection for complex structures such as long-span cable-supported bridges still remains a challenge. As a suspension or cable-stayed bridge involves in general thousands of structural components, the conventional damage detection methods based on model updating and/or parameter identification might result in ill-conditioning and non-uniqueness in the solution of inverse problems. Alternatively, methods that utilize, to the utmost extent, information from forward problems and avoid direct solution to inverse problems would be more suitable for vibration-based damage detection of long-span cable-supported bridges. The auto-associative neural network (ANN) technique and the probabilistic neural network (PNN) technique, that both eschew inverse problems, have been proposed for identifying and locating damage in suspension and cable-stayed bridges. Without the help of a structural model, ANNs with appropriate configuration can be trained using only the measured modal frequencies from healthy structure under varying environmental conditions, and a new set of modal frequency data acquired from an unknown state of the structure is then fed into the trained ANNs for damage presence identification. With the help of a structural model, PNNs can be configured using the relative changes of modal frequencies before and after damage by assuming damage at different locations, and then the measured modal frequencies from the structure can be presented to locate the damage. However, such formulated ANNs and PNNs may still be incompetent to identify damage occurring at the deck members of a cable-supported bridge because of very low modal sensitivity to the damage. The present study endeavors to enhance the damage identification capability of ANNs and PNNs when being applied for identification of damage incurred at deck members. Effort is first made to construct combined modal parameters which are synthesized from measured modal frequencies and modal shape components to train ANNs for damage alarming. With the purpose of improving identification accuracy, effort is then made to configure PNNs for damage localization by adapting the smoothing parameter in the Bayesian classifier to different values for different pattern classes. The performance of the ANNs with their input being modal frequencies and the combined modal parameters respectively and the PNNs with constant and adaptive smoothing parameters respectively is evaluated through simulation studies of identifying damage inflicted on different deck members of the double-deck suspension Tsing Ma Bridge.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.218-225
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• 2000

This paper presents intermediate results of an on-going research for identification of the modal and the stiffness parameters of a bridge based on the ambient vibration data caused by the traffic loadings. The main algorithms consist of the random decrement method incorporating band-pass filters for estimation of the free vibration signals the cross spectral density method for identification of the modal parameters and the neural networks technique for estimation of the element-level stiffness changes. An experimental study is carried out on a scaled bridge model with a composite section subjected to various moving vehicle loadings. Vertical accelerations are measured at several locations on the girder. The estimated frequencies and mode shapes are found to be well-compared with those obtained from the impact tests. The estimated stiffness changes using the neural networks are found to be very good for the case with the simulated data. However the accuracy is found to be not quite satisfactory for the case with the experimental data particularly for the small value of the stiffness changes.