• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.47-67
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• 2014

This study has been motivated to examine the performance of a wireless sensor system under the typhoons as well as to analyze the effect of the typhoons on the bridge's vibration responses and the variation of cable forces. During the long-term field experiment on a real cable-stayed bridge in years 2011-2012, the bridge had experienced two consecutive typhoons, Bolaven and Tembin, and the wireless sensor system had recorded data of wind speeds and vibration responses from a few survived sensor nodes. In this paper, the wireless structural health monitoring of stay cables under the two consecutive typhoons is presented. Firstly, the wireless monitoring system for cable-stayed bridge is described. Multi-scale vibration sensor nodes are utilized to measure both acceleration and PZT dynamic strain from stay cables. Also, cable forces are estimated by a tension force monitoring software based on vibration properties. Secondly, the cable-stayed bridge with the wireless monitoring system is described and its wireless monitoring capacities for deck and cables are evaluated. Finally, the structural health monitoring of stay cables under the attack of the two typhoons is described. Wind-induced deck vibration, cable vibration and cable force variation are examined based on the field measurements in the cable-stayed bridge under the two consecutive typhoons.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.505-524
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• 2010

Wireless structural monitoring systems consist of networks of wireless sensors installed to record the loading environment and corresponding response of large-scale civil structures. Wireless monitoring systems are desirable because they eliminate the need for costly and labor intensive installation of coaxial wiring in a structure. However, another advantageous characteristic of wireless sensors is their installation modularity. For example, wireless sensors can be easily and rapidly removed and reinstalled in new locations on a structure if the need arises. In this study, the reconfiguration of a rapid-to-deploy wireless structural monitoring system is proposed for monitoring short- and medium-span highway bridges. Narada wireless sensor nodes using power amplified radios are adopted to achieve long communication ranges. A network of twenty Narada wireless sensors is installed on the Yeondae Bridge (Korea) to measure the global response of the bridge to controlled truck loadings. To attain acceleration measurements in a large number of locations on the bridge, the wireless monitoring system is installed three times, with each installation concentrating sensors in one localized area of the bridge. Analysis of measurement data after installation of the three monitoring system configurations leads to reliable estimation of the bridge modal properties, including mode shapes.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.661-678
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• 2013

In this paper, a wireless sensing system for structural field evaluation and rating of bridges is presented. The system uses a wireless platform integrated with traditional analogue sensors including strain gages and accelerometers along with the operating software. A wireless vehicle position indicator is developed using a tri-axial accelerometer node that is mounted on the test vehicle, and was used for identifying the moving truck position during load testing. The developed software is capable of calculating the theoretical bridge rating factors based on AASHTO Load and Resistance Factor Rating specifications, and automatically produces the field adjustment factor through load testing data. The sensing system along with its application in bridge deck rating was successfully demonstrated on the Evansville Bridge in West Virginia. A finite element model was conducted for the test bridge, and was used to calculate the load distribution factors of the bridge deck after verifying its results using field data. A confirmation field test was conducted on the same bridge and its results varied by only 3% from the first test. The proposed wireless sensing system proved to be a reliable tool that overcomes multiple drawbacks of conventional wired sensing platforms designed for structural load evaluation of bridges.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.293-314
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• 2015

In this paper, wireless monitoring of typhoon-induced variation of dynamic characteristics of a cable-stayed bridge is presented. Firstly, cable-stayed bridge with the wireless monitoring system is described. Wireless vibration sensor nodes are utilized to measure accelerations from bridge deck and stay cables. Also, modal analysis methods are selected to extract dynamic characteristics. Secondly, dynamic responses of the cable-stayed bridge under the attack of two typhoons are analyzed by estimating relationships between wind velocity and dynamic characteristics. Wind-induced variations of deck and cable vibration responses are examined based on the field measurements under the two consecutive typhoons, Bolaven and Tembin. Finally, time-varying analyses are performed to investigate non-stationary random properties of the dynamic responses under the typhoons.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.533-553
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• 2013

In this paper, system identification of a cable-stayed bridge in Korea, the Hwamyung Bridge, is performed using vibration responses measured by a wireless sensor system. First, an acceleration based-wireless sensor system is employed for the structural health monitoring of the bridge, and wireless sensor nodes are deployed on a deck, a pylon and several selected cables. Second, modal parameters of the bridge are obtained both from measured vibration responses and finite element (FE) analysis. Frequency domain decomposition and stochastic subspace identification methods are used to obtain the modal parameters from the measured vibration responses. The FE model of the bridge is established using commercial FE software package. Third, structural properties of the bridge are updated using a modal sensitivity-based method. The updating work improves the accuracy of the FE model so that structural behaviors of the bridge can be represented better using the updated FE model. Finally, cable forces of the selected cables are also identified and compared with both design and lift-off test values.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.687-696
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• 2014

An integrated ship area network has functionality of remote control and autonomous management of various sensors and instruments embedded or boarded in a ship. For such environment, an wireless bridge is essential to transmit control and/or managing information to sensors or instruments from a central integrated ship area network station. In this paper, one of reliable schemes of WiMedia based wireless bridge using relay cooperative transmission using WiMedia distributed MAC protocol is proposed to increase a communication reliability between cluster headers, irrespective of channel variation. Simulation results show that the proposed wireless bridge using relay cooperative transmission scheme increases communication reliability.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.525-543
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• 2010

Testing and validation processes are critical tasks in developing a new hardware platform based on a new technology. This paper describes a series of experiments to evaluate the performance of a newly developed MEMS-based wireless sensor node as part of a wireless sensor network (WSN). The sensor node consists of a sensor board with four accelerometers, a thermometer and filtering and digitization units, and a MICAz mote for control, local computation and communication. The experiments include calibration and linearity tests for all sensor channels on the sensor boards, dynamic range tests to evaluate their performance when subjected to varying excitation, noise characteristic tests to quantify the noise floor of the sensor board, and temperature tests to study the behavior of the sensors under changing temperature profiles. The paper also describes a large-scale deployment of the WSN on a long-span suspension bridge, which lasted over three months and continuously collected ambient vibration and temperature data on the bridge. Statistical modal properties of a bridge tower are presented and compared with similar estimates from a previous deployment of sensors on the bridge and finite element models.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.359-371
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• 2022

Bridges are critical to the civil engineering infrastructure network as they facilitate movement of people, the transportation of goods and services. Given the aging of bridge infrastructure, federal officials mandate visual inspections biennially to identify necessary repair actions which are time, cost, and labor-intensive. Additionally, the expansion joints of bridges are rarely monitored due to cost. However, expansion joints are critical as they absorb movement from thermal effects, loadings strains, impact, abutment settlement, and vehicle motion movement. Thus, the need to monitor bridge expansion joints efficiently, at a low cost, and wirelessly is desired. This paper addresses bridge joint monitoring needs to develop a cost-effective, real-time wireless system that can be validated in a full-scale bridge structure. To this end, a wireless expansion joint monitoring was developed using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) sensors. An in-service bridge was selected as a testbed to validate the performance of the developed system compared with traditional displacement sensor, LVDT, temperature and humidity sensors. The short-term monitoring campaign with the wireless sensor system with the internet protocol version 6 over the time slotted channel hopping mode of IEEE 802.15.4e (6TiSCH) network showed reliable results, providing high potential of the developed system for effective joint monitoring at a low cost.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1324-1327
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• 2009

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

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.35-44
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• 2008

In this study, to establish a web-based bridge monitoring system with wireless sensor network environment, we constructed microminiaturized sensor based wireless communication techniques and micro processing, databases for data combination and administration, variable control programs and processors for transferring data by internet. Then those data are measured and analyzed by the constructed bridge monitoring system with wireless sensors. To evaluate the practicability of the bridge monitoring system with wireless sensor, we compared the values measured in the tests with wire sensor under same conditions. The results show that the trend of the data obtained from the monitoring systems with wire sensors and wireless sensors was very similar but the some lost data in the communication process with wireless sensor network environment. And through laboratory and field tests, the effectiveness and the applicability of the proposed methods were verified.