• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.199-211
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• 2015

The safety and performance of bridges could be monitored and evaluated by Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems. These systems try to identify and locate the damages in a structure and estimate their severities. Current SHM systems are applied to a single bridge, and they have not been used to monitor the structural condition of a network of bridges. This paper propose a new method which will be used in Synthetic Rating Procedures (SRP) developed by the authors of this paper and utilizes SHM systems for monitoring and evaluating the condition of a network of bridges. Synthetic rating procedures are used to assess the condition of a network of bridges and identify their ratings. As an additional part of the SRP, the method proposed in this paper can continuously monitor the behaviour of a network of bridges and therefore it can assist to prevent the sudden collapses of bridges or the disruptions to their serviceability. The method could be an important part of a bridge management system (BMS) for managers and engineers who work on condition assessment of a network of bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.3_4
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• pp.415-426
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• 2013

Condition assessment and monitoring of bridges is critical for safe passenger travel, public transportation, and efficient freight. In monitoring, displacement measurement capability is important to keep track of performance of bridge, in part or as whole. One of the most important parts of a bridge is the expansion joint, which accommodates continuous cyclic thermal expansion of the whole bridge. Though expansion joint is critical for bridge performance, its inspection and monitoring has not been considered significantly because the monitoring requires long-term data using cost intensive equipment. Recently, a wireless smart sensor network (WSSN) has drawn significant attention for transportation infrastructure monitoring because of its merits in low cost, easy installation, and versatile on-board computation capability. In this paper, a rapid wireless displacement monitoring system, wireless hybrid sensor (WHS), has been developed to monitor displacement of expansion joints of bridges. The WHS has been calibrated for both static and dynamic displacement measurement in laboratory environment, and deployed on an in-service highway bridge to demonstrate rapid expansion joint monitoring. The test-bed is a continuous steel girder bridge, the Founders Bridge, in East Hartford, Connecticut. Using the WHS system, the static and dynamic displacement of the expansion joint has been measured. The short-term displacement trend in terms of temperature is calculated. With the WHS system, approximately 6% of the time has been spent for installation, and 94% of time for the measurement showing strong potential of the developed system for rapid displacement monitoring.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.309-333
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• 2010

Civil infrastructure, in both its construction and maintenance, represents the largest societal investment in this country, outside of the health care industry. Despite being the lifeline of US commerce, civil infrastructure has scarcely benefited from the latest sensor technological advances. Our future should focus on harnessing these technologies to enhance the robustness, longevity and economic viability of this vast, societal investment, in light of inherent uncertainties and their exposure to service and even extreme loadings. One of the principal means of insuring the robustness and longevity of infrastructure is to strategically deploy smart sensors in them. Therefore, the objective is to develop novel, durable, smart sensors that are especially applicable to major infrastructure and the facilities to validate their reliability and long-term functionality. In some cases, this implies the development of new sensing elements themselves, while in other cases involves innovative packaging and use of existing sensor technologies. In either case, a parallel focus will be the integration and networking of these smart sensing elements for reliable data acquisition, transmission, and fusion, within a decision-making framework targeting efficient management and maintenance of infrastructure systems. In this paper, prudent and viable sensor and health monitoring technologies have been developed and used in several large structural systems. Discussion will also include several practical bridge health monitoring applications including their design, construction, and operation of the systems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.461-480
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• 2010

This paper analyses the data collected from the $2^{nd}$ Jindo Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge in Korea that is a structural health monitoring (SHM) international test bed for advanced wireless smart sensors network (WSSN) technology. The SHM system consists of a total of 70 wireless smart sensor nodes deployed underneath of the deck, on the pylons, and on the cables to capture the vibration of the bridge excited by traffic and environmental loadings. Analysis of the data is performed in both the time and frequency domains. Modal properties of the bridge are identified using the frequency domain decomposition and the stochastic subspace identification methods based on the output-only measurements, and the results are compared with those obtained from a detailed finite element model. Tension forces for the 10 instrumented stay cables are also estimated from the ambient acceleration data and compared both with those from the initial design and with those obtained during two previous regular inspections. The results of the data analyses demonstrate that the WSSN-based SHM system performs effectively for this cable-stayed bridge, giving direct access to the physical status of the bridge.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.113-119
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• 2020

The IoT-based sensor network is one of the methods that can be efficiently applied to maintain the facilities, such as bridges, at a low cost. In this study, based on LoRa LPWAN, one of the IoT communications, sensor board for cable tension monitoring, data acquisition board for constructing sensor network along with existing measurement sensors, are developed to create bridge structural health monitoring system. In addition, we designed and manufactured a smart sensor node for LoRa communication and established a sensor network for monitoring. Further, we constructed a test bed at the Yeonggwang Bridge to verify the performance of the system. The test bed verification results suggested that the LoRa LPWAN-based sensor network can be applied as one of the technologies for monitoring the bridge structure soundness; this is excellent in terms of data rate, accuracy, and economy.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.315-333
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• 2016

This study aims to perform damage identification for Da-Sheng-Guan (DSG) high-speed railway truss arch bridge using fuzzy clustering analysis. Firstly, structural health monitoring (SHM) system is established for the DSG Bridge. Long-term field monitoring strain data in 8 different cases caused by high-speed trains are taken as classification reference for other unknown cases. And finite element model (FEM) of DSG Bridge is established to simulate damage cases of the bridge. Then, effectiveness of one fuzzy clustering analysis method named transitive closure method and FEM results are verified using the monitoring strain data. Three standardization methods at the first step of fuzzy clustering transitive closure method are compared: extreme difference method, maximum method and non-standard method. At last, the fuzzy clustering method is taken to identify damage with different degrees and different locations. The results show that: non-standard method is the best for the data with the same dimension at the first step of fuzzy clustering analysis. Clustering result is the best when 8 carriage and 16 carriage train in the same line are in a category. For DSG Bridge, the damage is identified when the strain mode change caused by damage is more significant than it caused by different carriages. The corresponding critical damage degree called damage threshold varies with damage location and reduces with the increase of damage locations.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2023

With the development of technology worldwide, bridges are becoming larger, and the number of old bridges is also rapidly increasing. Monitoring the structural health of large, aging bridges is essential to preventing large-scale accidents. In this study, the application of a LoRa low-power wide-area network (LPWAN)-based wireless measurement system was investigated, and a LoRa wireless measurement system was established in the cable-stayed bridge section of Cheonsa Bridge, located in Shinan-gun, Jeollanam-do, Korea. The applicability of the LoRa LPWAN-based wireless monitoring system to large marine bridges was reviewed by comparing the performance and economic feasibility with wire-based monitoring systems that were built and operated by establishing a measurement system for the pylons, cables, and reinforcing girders of the bridge.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.387-395
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• 2013

It is important to collect reliable measured data for proper bridge health monitoring. However, in reality incomplete and unreliable data may be acquired due to sensor problems and environmental effects. In case of sensor malfunction, parts of measured data are missing and thus health monitoring cannot be carried out reliably. Due to environmental effects such as temperature variation, dynamic characteristics of natural frequencies may change as if the structure is damaged. The paper proposes a systematic procedure of data processing and data analysis for reliable structural health monitoring. Also, it applies the Mahalanobis distance as a health index computed statistically using revised data. The proposed procedure has been examined using numerically simulated data from a truss structure and then applied to a set of field data measured from Seohae cable-stayed bridge.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.85-92
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• 2003

This paper presents an electric power generating system for stand-alone health monitoring sensor unit of bridge structure based on ambient vibration of bridge. In this paper, a novel electric power generator which has minimum effect of armature reaction is proposed. The related mechanical and electrical design equations are obtained, and a pilot generator has been implemented. In addition, the charging system for extremely low generator current is discussed, and some improvements are identified for the system. This investigation reveals that diode characteristics of rectifier is dominant factor in the charging process. Finally, both the simulation, which uses real measurement data of the Namhae bridge as input of the pilot generator, and indoor test are carried out. The results showed the applicability and effectiveness of the stand-alone vibration powered generator.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.145-164
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• 2015

Bridge scour is the predominant cause of overwater bridge failures in North America and around the world. Several sensing systems have been developed over the years to detect the extent of scour so that preventative actions can be performed in a timely manner. These sensing systems have drawbacks, such as signal inaccuracy and discontinuity, installation difficulty, and high cost. Therefore, attempts to develop more efficient monitoring schemes continue. In this study, the viability of using optical dissolved oxygen (DO) probes for monitoring scour depths was explored. DO levels are very low in streambed sediments, as compared to the standard level of oxygen in flowing water. Therefore, scour depths can be determined by installing sensors to monitor DO levels at various depths along the buried length of a bridge pier or abutment. The measured DO is negligible when a sensor is buried but would increase significantly once scour occurs and exposes the sensor to flowing water. A set of experiments was conducted in which four dissolved oxygen probes were embedded at different soil depths in the vicinity of a mock bridge pier inside a laboratory flume simulating scour conditions. The results confirmed that DO levels jumped drastically when sensors became exposed during scour hole evolution, thereby providing discrete measurements of the maximum scour depth. Moreover, the DO probes could detect any subsequent refilling of the scour hole through the deposition of sediments. The effect of soil permeability on the sensing response time was also investigated.