• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.369-379
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• 2009

The sudden collapse of Interstate 35 Bridge in Minneapolis gave a wake-up call to US municipalities to re-evaluate aging bridges. In this situation, structural health monitoring (SHM) technology can provide the essential help needed for monitoring and maintaining the nation's infrastructure. Monitoring long span bridges such as cable-stayed bridges effectively requires the use of a large number of sensors. In this article, we introduce a probabilistic approach to identify optimal locations of sensors to enhance damage detection. Probability distribution functions are established using an artificial neural network trained using a priori knowledge of damage locations. The optimal number of sensors is identified using multi-objective optimization that simultaneously considers information entropy and sensor cost-objective functions. Luling Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge over the Mississippi River, is selected as a case study to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.697-708
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• 2017

Maintenance plays a critical role in the bridge industry, but actual practices show many limitations because of traditional, 2D-based information systems. It is necessary to develop a new generation of maintenance information management systems for more reliable decision making in bridge maintenance. Enhancing current work processes requires a BIM-based 3D digital model that can use information from the whole lifecycle of a project (design, construction, operation, and maintenance) through continuous exchanges and updates from each stakeholder. This study describes the development of a data scheme for maintenance of cable-stayed bridges. We implemented the proposed system for a cable-stayed bridge and discussed its effectiveness.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.1173-1196
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• 2014

Real-time dynamic substructuring tests have been conducted on a cable-deck system. The cable is representative of a full scale cable for a cable-stayed bridge and it interacts with a deck, numerically modelled as a single-degree-of-freedom system. The purpose of exciting the inclined cable at the bottom is to identify its nonlinear dynamics and to mark the stability boundary of the semi-trivial solution. The latter physically corresponds to the point at which the cable starts to have an out-of-plane response when both input and previous response were in-plane. The numerical and the physical parts of the system interact through a transfer system, which is an actuator, and the input signal generated by the numerical model is assumed to interact instantaneously with the system. However, only an ideal system manifests a perfect correspondence between the desired signal and the applied signal. In fact, the transfer system introduces into the desired input signal a delay, which considerably affects the feedback force that, in turn, is processed to generate a new input. The effectiveness of the control algorithm is measured by using the synchronization technique, while the online adaptive forward prediction algorithm is used to compensate for the delay error, which is present in the performed tests. The response of the cable interacting with the deck has been experimentally observed, both in the presence of delay and when delay is compensated for, and it has been compared with the analytical model. The effects of the interface delay in real-time dynamic substructuring tests conducted on the cable-deck system are extensively discussed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.485-500
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• 2016

Stay cables in some cable-stayed bridges suffer large amplitude vibrations under the simultaneous occurrence of rain and wind. This phenomenon is called rain-wind-induced vibration (RWIV). The upper rivulet oscillating circumferentially on the inclined cable surface plays an important role in this phenomenon. However, its small size and high sensitivity to wind flow make measuring rivulet size and its movement challenging. Moreover, the distribution of the rivulet along the entire cable has not been measured. This paper applies the videogrammetric technique to measure the movement and geometry dimension of the upper rivulet along the entire cable during RWIV. A cable model is tested in an open-jet wind tunnel with artificial rain. RWIV is successfully reproduced. Only one digital video camera is employed and installed on the cable during the experiment. The camera records video clips of the upper rivulet and cable movements. The video clips are then transferred into a series of images, from which the positions of the cable and the upper rivulet at each time instant are identified by image processing. The thickness of the upper rivulet is also estimated. The oscillation amplitude, equilibrium position, and dominant frequency of the rivulet are presented. The relationship between cable and rivulet variations is also investigated. Results demonstrate that this non-contact, non-intrusive measurement method has good resolution and is cost effective.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.379-392
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• 2011

This paper presents a multi-functional system, consisting of a magnetorheological (MR) damper and an electromagnetic induction (EMI) device, and its applications in stay cables. The proposed system is capable of offering multiple functions: (1) mitigating excessive vibrations of cables, (2) estimating cable tension, and (3) harvesting energy for wireless sensors used health monitoring of cable-stayed bridges. In the proposed system, the EMI device, consisting of permanent magnets and a solenoid coil, can converts vibration energy into electrical energy (i.e., induced emf); hence, it acts as an energy harvesting system. Moreover, the cable tension can be estimated by using the emf signals obtained from the EMI device. In addition, the MR damper, whose damping property is controlled by the harvested energy from the EMI device, can effectively reduce excessive cable vibrations. In this study, the multi-functionality of the proposed system is experimentally evaluated by conducting a shaking table test as well as a full-scale stay cable in a laboratory setting. In the shaking table experiment, the energy harvesting capability of the EMI device for wireless sensor nodes is investigated. The performance on the cable tension estimation and the vibration mitigation are evaluated using the full-scale cable test setup. The test results show that the proposed system can sufficiently generate and store the electricity for operating a wireless sensor node twice per day, significantly alleviate vibration of a stay cable (by providing about 20% larger damping compared to the passive optimal case), and estimate the cable tension accurately within a 2.5% error.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.33-46
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• 2012

To reduce the vibration of cable-stayed bridges, conventional magnetorheological (MR) damper control system (CMRDS), with separate power supply, sensors and controllers, is widely investigated. In this paper, to improve the reliability and performance of the control system, one adaptive MR damper control system (AMRDS) consisting of MR damper and piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) is proposed. According to piezoelectric effect, PEH can produce energy for powering MR damper. The energy is proportional to the product of the cable displacement and velocity. Due to the damping force changing with the energy, the new system can be adjustable to reduce the cable vibration. Compared with CMRDS, the new system is structurally simplified, replacing external sensor, power supply and controller with PEH. In the paper, taking the N26 cable of Shandong Binzhou Yellow River Bridge as example, the design method for the whole AMRDS is given, and simple formulas for PEH are derived. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive control system, the performance is compared with active control case and simple Bang-Bang semi-active control case. It is shown that AMRDS is better than simple Bang-Bang semi-active control case, and still needed to be improved in comparison with active control case.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.63-74
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• 2022

The deformation coordination between a rock/soil mass and an optical sensing cable is an important issue for accurate deformation monitoring. A stress-controlled triaxial apparatus was retrofitted by introducing an optical fiber into the soil specimen. High spatial resolution optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) was used for monitoring the strain distribution along the axial direction of the specimen. The results were compared with those measured by a displacement meter. The strain measured by the optical sensing cable has a good linear relationship with the strain calculated by the displacement meter for different confining pressures, which indicates that distributed optical fiber sensing technology is feasible for soil deformation monitoring. The performance of deformation coordination between the sensing cable and the soil during unloading is higher than that during loading based on the strain transfer coefficients. Three hypothetical strain distributions of the triaxial specimen are proposed, based on which theoretical models of the strain transfer coefficients are established. It appears that the parabolic distribution of specimen strain should be more reasonable by comparison. Nevertheless, the strain transfer coefficients obtained by the theoretical models are higher than the measured coefficients. On this basis, a strain transfer model considering slippage at the interface of the sensing cable and the soil is discussed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.769-780
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• 2017

Cable force monitoring is an essential and critical part of the safety evaluation of cable-supported bridges. A reasonable cable force monitoring scheme, particularly, sensor placement related to accurate safety assessment and budget cost-saving becomes a major concern of bridge administrative authorities. This paper presents optimal sensor placement for cable force monitoring by selecting representative sensor positions, which consider the spatial correlativeness existing in the cable group. The limited sensors would be utilized for maximizing useful information from the monitored bridges. The maximum information coefficient (MIC), mutual information (MI) based kernel density estimation, as well as Pearson coefficients, were all employed to detect potential spatial correlation in the cable group. Compared with the Pearson coefficient and MIC, the mutual information is more suitable for identifying the association existing in cable group and thus, is selected to describe the spatial relevance in this study. Then, the bond energy algorithm, which collects clusters based on the relationship of surrounding elements, is used for the optimal placement of cable sensors. Several optimal placement strategies are discussed with different correlation thresholds for the cable group of Nanjing No.3 Yangtze River Bridge, verifying the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.627-639
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• 2019

Passive control may not provide enough damping for a stay cable since the control devices are often restricted to a low location level. In order to enhance control performance of conventional passive dampers, a new type of damper integrated with a rotary electromagnetic damper providing variable damping force and a flywheel serving as an inertial mass, called the rotary electromagnetic inertial mass damper (REIMD), is presented for suppressing the cable vibrations in this paper. The mechanical model of the REIMD is theoretically derived according to generation mechanisms of the damping force and the inertial force, and further validated by performance tests. General dynamic characteristics of an idealized taut cable with a REIMD installed close to the cable end are theoretically investigated, and parametric analysis are then conducted to investigate the effects of inertial mass and damping coefficient on vibration control performance. Finally, vibration control tests on a scaled cable model with a REIMD are performed to further verify mitigation performance through the first two modal additional damping ratios of the cable. Both the theoretical and experimental results show that control performance of the cable with the REIMD are much better than those of conventional passive viscous dampers, which mainly attributes to the increment of the damper displacement due to the inertial mass induced negative stiffness effects of the REIMD. Moreover, it is concluded that both inertial mass and damping coefficient of an optimum REIMD will decrease with the increase of the mode order of the cable, and oversize inertial mass may lead to negative effect on the control performance.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.565-577
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• 2019

One of the most effective countermeasures for mitigating cable vibration is to install mechanical dampers near the anchorage of the cable. Most of the dampers used in the field are so-called passive dampers where their parameters cannot be changed once designed. The parameters of passive dampers are usually determined based on the optimal damper force obtained from the universal design curve for linear dampers, which will provide a maximum additional damping for the cable. As the optimal damper force is chosen based on a predetermined principal vibration mode, passive dampers will be most effective if cable undergoes single-mode vibration where the vibration mode is the same as the principal mode used in the design. However, in the actual engineering practice, multi-mode vibrations are often observed for cables. Therefore, it is desirable to have dampers that can suppress different modes of cable vibrations simultaneously. In this paper, MR dampers are proposed for controlling multi-mode cable vibrations, because of its ability to change parameters and its adaptability of active control without inquiring large power resources. Although the highly nonlinear feature of the MR material leads to a relatively complex representation of its mathematical model, effective control strategies can still be derived for suppressing multi-mode cable vibrations based on nonlinear modelling, as proposed in this paper. Firstly, the nonlinear Bouc-wen model is employed to accurately portray the salient characteristics of the MR damper. Then, the desired optimal damper force is determined from the universal design curve of friction dampers. Finally, the input voltage (current) of MR damper corresponding to the desired optimal damper force is calculated from the nonlinear Bouc-wen model of the damper using a piecewise linear interpolation scheme. Numerical simulations are carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm for mitigating multi-mode cable vibrations induced by different external excitations.