• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2012

In bridge engineering, maintenance strategies and thus budgetary demands are highly influenced by construction type and quality of design. Nowadays bridge owners and planners tend to include life-cycle cost analyses in their decision processes regarding the overall design trying to optimize structural reliability and durability within financial constraints. Smart permanent and short term monitoring can reduce the associated risk of new design concepts by observing the performance of structural components during prescribed time periods. The objectives of this paper are the discussion and analysis of influence line or influence field approaches in terms of (a) an efficient incorporation of monitoring information in the structural performance assessment, (b) an efficient characterization of performance indicators for the assessment of structures, (c) the ability of optimizing the positions of sensors of a monitoring system, and (d) the ability of checking the robustness of the monitoring systems applied to a structure. The proposed influence line- model correction approach has been applied to an integrative monitoring system that has been installed for the performance assessment of an existing three-span jointless bridge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.259-268
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• 2017

System identification of structures is one of the important aspects of structural health monitoring. The accuracy and efficiency of identification results is affected severely by measurement noises, especially when the structure system is large, such as bridge structures, and when online system identification is required. In this paper, the least square estimation (LSE) method is used combined with the substructure approach for identifying structural parameters of a cable-stay bridge with large degree of freedoms online. Numerical analysis is carried out by first dividing the bridge structure into smaller substructures and then estimates the parameters of each substructure online using LSE method. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is capable of identifying structural parameters, however, the accuracy and efficiency of identification results depend highly on the noise sensitivities of loading region, loading pattern as well as element size.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.65-75
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• 2015

Among the destruction instances of half-through arch bridges, the shorter hangers are more likely to be ruined. For a thorough investigation of the hanger system durability, we have studied vehicle impact effect on hangers with vehicle-bridge coupling method for a half-through concrete-filled-steel-tube arch bridge. A numerical method has been applied to simulate the variation of dynamic internal force (stress) in hangers under different vehicle speeds and road surface roughness. The characteristics and differences in impact effect among hangers with different length (position) are compared. The impact effect is further analyzed comprehensively based on the vehicle speed distribution model. Our results show that the dynamic internal force induced by moving vehicles inside the shorter hangers is significantly greater than that inside the longer ones. The largest difference of dynamic internal force among the hangers could be as high as 28%. Our results well explained a common phenomenon in several hanger damage accidents occurred in China. This work forms a basis for hanger system's fatigue analysis and service life evaluation. It also provides a reference to the design, management, maintenance, monitoring, and evaluation for this kind of bridge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.265-277
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• 2020

Recently, the concept of "drive-by" bridge monitoring system using indirect measurements from a passing vehicle to extract key parameters of a bridge has been rapidly developed. As one of the most key parameters of a bridge, the natural frequency has been successfully extracted theoretically and in practice using indirect measurements. The frequency of bridge is generally calculated applying Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) directly. However, it has been demonstrated that with the increase in vehicle velocity, the estimated frequency resolution of FFT will be very low causing a great extracted error. Moreover, because of the low frequency resolution, it is hard to detect the frequency drop caused by any damages or degradation of the bridge structural integrity. This paper will introduce a new technique of bridge frequency extraction based on Hilbert Transform (HT) that is not restricted to frequency resolution and can, therefore, improve identification accuracy. In this paper, deriving from the vehicle response, the closed-form solution associated with bridge frequency removing the effect of vehicle velocity is discussed in the analytical study. Then a numerical Vehicle-Bridge Interaction (VBI) model with a quarter car model is adopted to demonstrate the proposed approach. Finally, factors that affect the proposed approach are studied, including vehicle velocity, signal noise, and road roughness profile.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.165-174
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• 2010

In this paper, a two-phase structural health monitoring system using acceleration response signatures are presented to firstly alarm the change in structural condition and to secondly detect the changed location for full-scale concrete girder bridges. Firstly, Mihocheon Bridge which is a two-span continuous concrete girder bridge is selected as the target structure. The dynamic response features of Mihocheon Bridge are extracted by forced vibration test using bowling ball. Secondly, the damage alarming occurrence and the damage localization techniques are selected to design two-phase structural health monitoring system for Mihocheon Bridge. As the damage alarming techniques, auto-regressive model using time-domain signatures, correlation coefficient of frequency response function and frequency response ratio assurance criterion are selected. As the damage localization technique, modal strain energy-based damage index method is selected. Finally, the feasibility of two-phase structural health monitoring systems is evaluated from static loading tests using a dump truck.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2006.11b
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• pp.336-340
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• 2006

The cases of using new methods of big blocks are largely increasing on Recent large-scale bridge structures. So the accurate data of responses of bridges following environmental causes are required to be quickly recorded in order to predict. For this reason described above, the research on measuring system should be conducted for more knowledge of the details on application and stability of new methods. In this study, the new health monitoring system that can monitor the real behavior and damages of the bridge during all processes of construction is presented by analyzing cases of domestic and overseas bridge health monitoring system, and applied methods of following bridges.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.191-205
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• 2023

In this paper, through operational modal analysis and ambient vibration tests, the dynamic characteristics of a multi-span simply-supported reinforced concrete highway bridge deck was determined and the results were used to assess the quality of construction of the individual spans. Supporting finite element (FE) models were created and analyzed according to the design drawings. After carrying out the dynamic tests and extracting the modal properties of the deck, the quality of construction was relatively assessed by comparing the results obtained from all the tests from the individual spans and the FE results. A comparison of the test results among the different spans showed a maximum difference value of around 9.3 percent between the superstructure's natural frequencies. These minor differences besides the obtained values of modal damping ratios, in which the differences were not more than 5 percent, can be resulted from suitable performance, health, and acceptable construction quality of the bridge.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.189-206
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• 2011

In this study, the subspace stochastic realization theories (SSR model I and SSR model II) have been applied to a real bridge for estimating its dynamic characteristics (natural frequencies, damping constants, and vibration modes) under ambient vibration. A numerical simulation is carried out for an arch-type steel truss bridge using a white noise excitation. The estimates obtained from this simulation are compared with those obtained from the Finite Element (FE) analysis, demonstrating good agreement and clarifying the excellent performance of this method in estimating the structural dynamic characteristics. Subsequently, these methods are applied to the vibration induced by both strong and weak winds as obtained by remote monitoring of the Kabashima bridge (an arch-type steel truss bridge of length 136 m, and situated in Nagasaki city). The results obtained with this experimental data reveal that more accurate estimates are obtained when strong wind vibration data is used. In contrast, the vibration data obtained from weak wind provides accurate estimates at lower frequencies, and inaccurate accuracy for higher modes of vibration that do not get excited by the wind of lower intensity. On the basis of the identified results obtained using both simulated data and monitored data from a real bridge, it is determined that the SSR model II realizes more accurate results than the SSR model I. In general, the approach investigated in this study is found to provide acceptable estimates of the dynamic characteristics of highway bridges as well as for the vibration monitoring of bridges.

• 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.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.243-256
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• 2019

Determination of the most meaningful structural modes and gaining insight into how these modes evolve are important issues for long-term structural health monitoring of the long-span bridges. To address this issue, modal parameters identified throughout the life of the bridge need to be compared and linked with each other, which is the process of mode tracking. The modal frequencies for a long-span bridge are typically closely-spaced, sensitive to the environment (e.g., temperature, wind, traffic, etc.), which makes the automated tracking of modal parameters a difficult process, often requiring human intervention. Machine learning methods are well-suited for uncovering complex underlying relationships between processes and thus have the potential to realize accurate and automated modal tracking. In this study, Gaussian mixture model (GMM), a popular unsupervised machine learning method, is employed to automatically determine and update baseline modal properties from the identified unlabeled modal parameters. On this foundation, a new mode tracking method is proposed for automated mode tracking for long-span bridges. Firstly, a numerical example for a three-degree-of-freedom system is employed to validate the feasibility of using GMM to automatically determine the baseline modal properties. Subsequently, the field monitoring data of a long-span bridge are utilized to illustrate the practical usage of GMM for automated determination of the baseline list. Finally, the continuously monitoring bridge acceleration data during strong typhoon events are employed to validate the reliability of proposed method in tracking the changing modal parameters. Results show that the proposed method can automatically track the modal parameters in disastrous scenarios and provide valuable references for condition assessment of the bridge structure.