• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.549-562
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• 2017

The US railroad network carries 40% of the nation's total freight. Railroad bridges are the most critical part of the network infrastructure and, therefore, must be properly maintained for the operational safety. Railroad managers inspect bridges by measuring displacements under train crossing events to assess their structural condition and prioritize bridge management and safety decisions accordingly. The displacement of a railroad bridge under train crossings is one parameter of interest to railroad bridge owners, as it quantifies a bridge's ability to perform safely and addresses its serviceability. Railroad bridges with poor track conditions will have amplified displacements under heavy loads due to impacts between the wheels and rail joints. Under these circumstances, vehicle-track-bridge interactions could cause excessive bridge displacements, and hence, unsafe train crossings. If displacements during train crossings could be measured objectively, owners could repair or replace less safe bridges first. However, data on bridge displacements is difficult to collect in the field as a fixed point of reference is required for measurement. Accelerations can be used to estimate dynamic displacements, but to date, the pseudo-static displacements cannot be measured using reference-free sensors. This study proposes a method to estimate total transverse displacements of a railroad bridge under live train loads using acceleration and tilt data at the top of the exterior pile bent of a standard timber trestle, where train derailment due to excessive lateral movement is the main concern. Researchers used real bridge transverse displacement data under train traffic from varying bridge serviceability levels. This study explores the design of a new bridge deck-pier experimental model that simulates the vibrations of railroad bridges under traffic using a shake table for the input of train crossing data collected from the field into a laboratory model of a standard timber railroad pile bent. Reference-free sensors measured both the inclination angle and accelerations of the pile cap. Various readings are used to estimate the total displacements of the bridge using data filtering. The estimated displacements are then compared to the true responses of the model measured with displacement sensors. An average peak error of 10% and a root mean square error average of 5% resulted, concluding that this method can cost-effectively measure the total displacement of railroad bridges without a fixed reference.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2006.11b
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• pp.530-537
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• 2006

Recently, the railroad route plan is trying to minimize the damage of the local resident which is caused by railroad construction. For this reason, reducing the banking height of soil roadbed, lowering the bridge girder height of a solid intersection and a part of cross river, the through bridge type which can achieve a required span length must apply. The representative through bridges of railroad are arch bridges, truss bridges and plate girder bridges, the through plate girder bridge of variable section can apply that the span length of these bridges is about $30{\sim}50m$, namely, middle span length bridge types, and that can satisfy structural capacity and beauty of railroad at the same time. This paper introduces plan and design process of the Su-eo cheon bridge applied by a through plate girder bridge type of the Jinju-Gwangyang double track 6th construction ordered at Korea Rail network Authority in 2005.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.683-698
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• 2015

Railroad bridges form an integral part of railway infrastructure throughout the world. To accommodate increased axel loads, train speeds, and greater volumes of freight traffic, in the presence of changing structural conditions, the load carrying capacity and serviceability of existing bridges must be assessed. One way is through system identification of in-service railroad bridges. To dates, numerous researchers have reported system identification studies with a large portion of their applications being highway bridges. Moreover, most of those models are calibrated at global level, while only a few studies applications have used globally and locally calibrated model. To reach the global and local calibration, both ambient vibration tests and controlled tests need to be performed. Thus, an approach for system identification of a railroad bridge that can be used to assess the bridge in global and local sense is needed. This study presents system identification of a railroad bridge using free vibration data. Wireless smart sensors are employed and provided a portable way to collect data that is then used to determine bridge frequencies and mode shapes. Subsequently, a calibrated finite element model of the bridge provides global and local information of the bridge. The ability of the model to simulate local responses is validated by comparing predicted and measured strain in one of the diagonal members of the truss. This research demonstrates the potential of using measured field data to perform model calibration in a simple and practical manner that will lead to better understanding the state of railroad bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.225-236
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• 2017

Railroad bridges in North America are an integral but aging part of the railroad network and are typically only monitored using visual inspections. When quantitative information is required for assessment, railroads often monitor bridges using accelerometers. However without a sensor to directly measure displacements, it is difficult to interpret these results as they relate to bridge performance. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is a non-contact sensor technology capable of directly measuring the displacement of any visible bridge component. In this research, a railroad bridge was monitored under load using DIC and accelerometers. DIC measurements are directly compared to serviceability limits and it is observed that the bridge is compliant. The accelerometer data is also used to calculate displacements which are compared to the DIC measurements to assess the accuracy of the accelerometer measurements. These measurements compared well for zero-mean lateral data, providing measurement redundancy and validation. The lateral displacements from both the accelerometers and DIC at the supports were then used to determine the source of lateral displacements within the support system.

• International Journal of Railway
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.83-89
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• 2010

This paper attempts to extract the fundamental dynamic properties, i.e. natural frequencies, damping ratios of the 48 m-long, $20^{\circ}$ skewed real bridge with PSC girders wrapped by a steel plate. The forced vibration test is achieved by mounting 12 Hz-capacity of artificial oscillator on the top of bridge deck. The acceleration histories at the 9 different locations of deck surface are recorded using accelerometors. From this full-scaled vibration test, the two possible resonance frequencies are detected at 2.38 Hz and 9.86 Hz of the skewed bridge deck by sweeping a beating frequency up to 12 Hz. The absolute acceleration/energy exhibits much higher in case of higher-order twist mode, 9.86 Hz due to the skewness of bridge deck which leads asymmetric situation of vibration. This implies the test bridge is under swinging vertically in fundamental flexure mode while the bridge is also flickered up and down laterally at 9.86 Hz. This is probably by asymmetric geometry of skewed deck. A detailed 3D beam-shell bridge models using finite elements are performed under a series of train loads for modal dynamic analyses. Thereby, the effect of skewness is examined to clarify the lateral flickering caused by asymmetrical geometry of bridge deck.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.574-580
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• 2005

Recently, the number of bridges and tunnels in railway is increasing due to the super high-speedy of train. Also, because of successively accidents of civil structures such as bridges and dams, the importance of maintenance become influential. The purpose of this study is to show the probabilistic life cycle cost analysis technique(PLCC) of the railroad bridge as pubic-infrastructures, and reasonably to indicate the economy in life cycle cost(LCC) through a case study. Rationally for life cycle cost analysis, the data gathered through many materials considered the uncertainty such as covariance. As a result, it is indicated that prestressed concrete bridge is pretty more cost-effective during life-cycle than preflex as well as steel box bridge. In future, if the construction of database and maintenance materials for railroad infrastructure is actualized, the life cycle cost analysis for railroad can be conducted easily and practically.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.139-144
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• 2001

Railroad noise is one of the main causes of environmental impact. Whenever a new railroad line is planned or a housing project near an existing railroad is proposed, an estimate of the relevant noise levels is usually required. For this, it is necessary to quantify those parameters that affect the railroad noise. This paper deals with an estimation of railroad noise by the barrier and deck plate of the bridge.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.637-652
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• 2018

This paper presents a comparative study of displacement measurement using four sensors that are being used in the field: they are a ring gauge, a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV), a vision-based displacement measurement system (VDMS), and an optoelectronic displacement meter (ODM). The comparative study was carried out on a brand-new high-speed railroad bridge designed to produce displacements within a couple of millimeters under the loading of a high-speed train. The tests were carried out on a single-span steel plate girder bridge two times with different train loadings: KTX and HEMU. The measured displacement is compared as raw and further discussion was made on the measurement noise, peak displacement, and frequency response of four sensors. The comparisonsare summarized to show the pros and cons of the used sensors in measuring displacement at a typical high-speed railroad bridge.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.562-567
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• 2005

F.C.M applied from Jin Jung Li to Yang Su Li(660m) in Puk Han River Bridge(1,414m) construction part is a construction method on the double-track construction which is the third section part of work, called Chung Ang Railroad Line(Deok-So${\sim}$Won-Ju). This method is the beginning application on Railroad Bridge. After completing upper slab structure, there are several following works such as setting up ballast, sleepers and laying long rails. So it is important to consider the properties of Railroad Bridge while designing the length of bridge and its single span. After the physical process study the shrinkage and creep of concrete, bending up by prestressing in general PSM bridge, relaxation of tendons as time goes by after post-tension, the conclusion of such a study is applied to the Puk-Han River Bridge in this construction field.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.305-310
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• 2013

In general, it is difficult to measure dynamic responses of a bridge with stepwise increasing speed of a train during commercial service on a high speed railroad. However, before opening the 2nd stage of the Gyeongbu high speed railroad, there was an opportunity for field tests and measurements of the bridge with stepwise increasing speed(from 170km/ h to 315km/h). The measured responses were compared with the results of a developed bridge/train interaction analysis. Although good agreement was found throughout almost the entire range of speeds, relatively large differences were found in the vicinity of the critical speed at which resonance behavior of the bridge occurs. To investigate the cause of this, reanalyses are performed with re-estimated damping ratios from field tests.