• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.201-213
• /
• 2021

Contrast to the conventional jointed bridge design, integral abutment bridges (IABs) offer some marked advantages like reduced maintenance and enhanced service life of the structure due to elimination of joints in the deck and monolithic construction practices. However, the force transfer mechanism during seismic and thermal movements is a topic of interest owing to rigid connection between superstructure and substructure (piers and abutments). This study attempts to model an existing IAB by including the abutment backfill interaction and soil-foundation interaction effects using Winkler foundation assumption to determine its seismic response. Keeping in view the significance of abutment behavior in an IAB, the probability of damage to the abutment is evaluated using fragility function. Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) approach is used in this regard, wherein, nonlinear time history analyses are conducted on the numerical model using a selected suite of ground motions with increasing intensities until damage to abutment. It is concluded from the fragility analysis results that for a MCE level earthquake in the location of integral bridge, the probability of complete damage to the abutment is minimal.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.12 no.3_4
• /
• pp.427-440
• /
• 2013

A growing need has developed in the United States to obtain more specific knowledge on the structural integrity of infrastructure due to aging service lives, heavier and more frequent loading conditions, and durability issues. This need has spurred extensive research in the area of structural health monitoring over the past few decades. Several structural health monitoring techniques have been developed that are capable of locating damage in structures using modal strain energy of mode shapes. Typically in the past, bending strain energy has been used in these methods since it is a dominant vibrational mode in many structures and is easily measured. Additionally, there may be cases, such as pipes, shafts, or certain bridges, where structures exhibit significant torsional behavior as well. In this research, torsional strain energy is used to locate damage. The damage index method is used on two numerical models; a cantilevered steel pipe and a simply-supported steel plate girder bridge. Torsion damage indices are compared to bending damage indices to assess their effectiveness at locating damage. The torsion strain energy method is capable of accurately locating damage and providing additional valuable information to both of the structures' behaviors.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.58 no.2
• /
• pp.199-216
• /
• 2016

A large number of bridges were built several decades ago, and most of which have gradually suffered serious deteriorations or damage due to the increasing traffic loads, environmental effects, and inadequate maintenance. However, very few studies were conducted to investigate the vibration behaviors of a damaged bridge under moving vehicles. In this paper, the vibration behaviors of such vehicle-bridge system are investigated in details, in which the effects of the concrete cracks and bridge surface roughness are particularly considered. Specifically, two vehicle models are introduced, i.e., a simplified four degree-of-freedoms (DOFs) vehicle model and a more complex seven DOFs vehicle model, respectively. The bridges are modeled in two types, including a single-span uniform beam and a full scale reinforced concrete high-pier bridge, respectively. The crack zone in the reinforced concrete bridge is considered by a damage function. The bridge and vehicle coupled equations are established by combining the equations of motion of both the bridge and vehicles using the displacement relationship and interaction force relationship at the contact points between the tires and bridge. The numerical simulations and verifications show that the proposed modeling method can rationally simulate the vibration behaviors of the damaged bridge under moving vehicles; the effect of cracks on the impact factors is very small and can be neglected for the bridge with none roughness, however, the effect of cracks on the impact factors is very significant and cannot be neglected for the bridge with roughness.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.387-400
• /
• 1999

Damage detection in civil engineering structures using the change in dynamic system parameters has gained a lot of scientific interest during the last decade. By repeating a dynamic test on a structure after a certain time of use, the change in modal parameters can be used to quantify and qualify damages. To be able to use the modal parameters confidentially for damage evaluation, the effect of other parameters such as excitation type, ambient conditions,... should be considered. In this paper, the influence of excitation type on the dynamic system parameters of a highway prestressed concrete bridge is investigated. The bridge, B13, lies between the villages Vilvoorde and Melsbroek and crosses the highway E19 between Brussels and Antwerpen in Belgium. A drop weight and ambient vibration are used to excite the bridge and the response at selected points is recorded. A finite element model is constructed to support and verify the dynamic measurements. It is found that the difference between the natural frequencies measured using impact weight and ambient vibration is in general less than 1%.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
• /
• 2008.06a
• /
• pp.160-163
• /
• 2008

Currently workmen take charge of the maintenance work of bridges. But the process of sealing cracks in damage bridge is dangerous, costly, and labor-intensive operation Labor turnover and training are increasing problems related to crack sealing crews, and as traffic volumes increase, crack sealing operations become increasingly disruptive to the general public. Automation crack sealing can reduce labor and road user costs, improve work quality and decrease worker exposure to bridge hazards. This research aims to develop an automated damage bridge crack sealing system and developing of algorithms for hybrid controlling.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.132-139
• /
• 2000

In this study, the fatigue life assessments of steel railway bridge in Japan National Railway were carried out. This railway bridge has been under in service from 1957, and fatigue damages were occurred at bead toe of upper part of vertical stiffeners of stringers, bead toes of scallop in lower part of vertical stiffeners in stringers and crossings of cross beams and stringers. From this study, a series of field tests were carried out by stress history measurement about above mentioned points. And as a results of stress histogram analysis, cummulative fatigue damage rate and fatigue life of these members should be calculate quantitatively. And from this estimation technique, cummulative fatigue damage rate and fatigue life of this railway bridge were strongly affected in passing tonage every year and the histories of live load.

• Computers and Concrete
• /
• v.20 no.5
• /
• pp.563-572
• /
• 2017

Ordinary reinforced concrete (RC) and prestressed concrete bridges are two popular and typical types of short- and medium-span bridges that accounts for the vast majority of all existing bridges. The cost of maintaining, repairing or replacing degraded existing RC bridges is immense. Detecting the abnormality of RC bridges at an early stage and taking the protective measures in advance are effective ways to improve maintenance practices and reduce the maintenance cost. This study proposes a systematic method from influence line (IL) identification to damage detection with applications to RC bridges. An IL identification method which integrates the cubic B-spline function with Tikhonov regularization is first proposed based on the vehicle information and the corresponding moving vehicle induced bridge response time history. Subsequently, IL change is defined as a damage index for bridge damage detection, and information fusion technique that synthesizes ILs of multiple locations/sensors is used to improve the efficiency and accuracy of damage localization. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed systematic method is verified through experimental tests on a three-span continuous RC beam. The comparison suggests that the identified ILs can well match with the baseline ILs, and it demonstrates that the proposed IL identification method has a high accuracy and a great potential in engineering applications. Results in this case indicate that deflection ILs are superior than strain ILs for damage detection of RC beams, and the performance of damage localization can be significantly improved with the information fusion of multiple ILs.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.45-56
• /
• 2005

The air bridge that connects an airplane with air terminal is important facilities that help people get in and out an airplane safely and conveniently. As the number of people who takes airplane has been increasing, an unexpected accident or a disorder on an air bridge can lead to the loss of passenger's lives or a great damage of airplane. This paper suggests a method to secure the safety of an air bridge.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.229-236
• /
• 2003

Artificial neural network has been used for damage assessment by many researchers, but there are still some barriers that must be overcome to improve its accuracy and efficiency. The major problems associated with the conventional artificial neural network, especially the Back Propagation Neural Network(BPNN), are on the need of many training patterns and on the ambiguous relationship between neural network architecture and the convergence of solution. Therefore, the number of hidden layers and nodes in one hidden layer would be determined by trial and error. Also, it takes a lot of time to prepare many training patterns and to determine the optimum architecture of neural network. To overcome these drawbacks, the PNN can be used as a pattern classifier. In this paper, the PNN is used numerically to detect damage in a plate girder railway bridge. Also, the comparison between mode shapes and natural frequencies of the structure is investigated to select the appropriate training pattern for the damage detection in the railway bridge.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.19 no.2 s.72
• /
• pp.125-138
• /
• 2006

The use of system identification approaches for damage detection has been expanded in recent years owing to the advancements in data acquisition system andinformation processing techniques. Soft computing techniques such as neural networks and genetic algorithm have been utilized increasingly for this end due to their excellent pattern recognition capability. In this study, damage detection of bridge structures using neural networks technique based on the modal properties is presented, which can effectively consider the modeling uncertainty in the analysis model from which the training patterns are to be generated. The differences or the ratios of the mode shape components between before and after damage are used as the input to the neural networks in this method, since they are found to be less sensitive to the modeling errors than the mode shapes themselves. Two numerical example analyses on a simple beam and a multi-girder bridge are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method.