TY - JOUR A1 - Zinas, Orestis A1 - Papaioannou, Iason A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Cuéllar, Pablo T1 - Multivariate Gaussian Process Regression for 3D site characterization from CPT and categorical borehole data N2 - Accurate prediction of subsurface stratigraphy and geotechnical properties, along with quantification of associated uncertainties, is essential for improving the design and assessment of geotechnical structures. Several studies have utilized indirect data from Cone Penetration Tests (CPTs) and employed statistical and Machine Learning methods to quantify the geological and geotechnical uncertainty. Incorporating direct borehole data can reduce uncertainties. This study proposes a computationally efficient multivariate Gaussian Process model that utilizes site-specific data and: (i) jointly models multiple categorical (USCS labels) and continuous CPT variables, (ii) learns a non-separable covariance structure leveraging the Linear Model of Coregionalization, and (iii) predicts a USCS based stratigraphy and CPT parameters at any location within the 3D domain. The results demonstrate that integrating geotechnical and geological data into a unified model yields more reliable predictions of subsurface stratification, enabling the parallel interpretation of both USCS classification and CPT profiles. Importantly, the model demonstrates its potential to integrate multiple variables from different sources and data types, contributing to the advancement of methodologies for the joint modeling of geotechnical, geological, and geophysical data. KW - Geotechnical site-characterization KW - Cone Penetration Tests KW - Stratigraphy prediction KW - Multivariate Gaussian process KW - Variational inference KW - Linear Model of Coregionalization PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-629456 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2025.108052 SN - 1872-6917 VL - 352 SP - 1 EP - 19 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-62945 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Simon, Patrick A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Baeßler, Matthias A1 - Morgenthal, Guido T1 - Parallelized adaptive Bayesian updating with structural reliability methods for inference of large engineering models N2 - The reassessment of engineering structures, such as bridges, now increasingly involve the integration of models with realworld data. This integration aims to achieve accurate ‘as-is’ analysis within a digital twin framework. Bayesian model updating combines prior knowledge and data with models to enhance the modelling accuracy while consistently handling uncertainties. When updating large engineering models, numerical methods for Bayesian analysis present significant computational challenges due to the need for a substantial number of likelihood evaluations. The novelty of this contribution is to parallelize adaptive Bayesian Updating with Structural reliability methods combined with subset simulation (aBUS) to improve its computational efficiency. To demonstrate the efficiency and practical applicability of the proposed approach, we present a case study on the Maintalbrücke Gemünden, a large railway bridge. We leverage modal property data to update a linear-elastic dynamic structural model of the bridge. The parallelized aBUS approach significantly reduces computational time, making Bayesian updating of large engineering models feasible within reasonable timeframes. The improved efficiency allows for a wider implementation of Bayesian model updating in structural health monitoring and maintenance decision support systems. KW - Bayesian model updating KW - Bayesian updating with structural reliability methods KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Parallelization KW - Modal analysis KW - Railway bridge PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-633686 DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/13694332251346848 SN - 1369-4332 SN - 2048-4011 SP - 1 EP - 26 PB - Sage AN - OPUS4-63368 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Zinas, Orestis A1 - Papaioannou, Iason A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Cuéllar, Pablo A1 - Baeßler, Matthias T1 - 3D spatial modelling of CPT data for probabilistic preliminary assessment of potential pile tip damage upon collision with boulders N2 - Tip damage of monopiles from boulder collisions during installation has emerged as a critical design issue, primarily due to the combination of the widespread use of large-diameter piles and the complexity of the ground conditions at the available sites. Recently, a framework relating potential pile tip damage to cone tip resistance from Cone Penetration Tests (CPTs) has been proposed in the literature. Gaussian processes are powerful stochastic models that enable probabilistic spatial interpolation of soil data at any location within a site. On this basis, this study utilizes sparse CPT data from a site in the North Sea, to first develop an efficient Gaussian process regression model, which is used to derive a three-dimensional (3D) probabilistic predictive map of the cone tip resistance. Assuming deterministic loading conditions and a factual collision with a boulder of pre-defined properties, the cone tip resistance predictive model is subsequently used for a probabilistic preliminary assessment of potential pile tip damage. Results of the analysis are realistic 3D probability maps of potential damage that aim to support engineering judgment and contribute towards cost-effective site investigation planning and offshore wind farm design. T2 - 5th International Symposium on Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics (ISFOG 2025) CY - Nantes, France DA - 09.06.2025 KW - CPT data KW - Gaussian process regression KW - Boulder impact KW - Preliminary pile tip damage assessment PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-634417 SN - 978-2-85782-758-0 DO - https://doi.org/10.53243/ISFOG2025-323 SP - 505 EP - 510 PB - International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering CY - London AN - OPUS4-63441 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Baeßler, Matthias A1 - Ebell, Gino A1 - Herrmann, Ralf A1 - Hille, Falk A1 - Schneider, Ronald ED - Lienhart, Werner ED - Krüger, Markus T1 - On potentials and challenges of physics-informed SHM for civil engineering structures N2 - Physics-informed structural health monitoring, which integrates realistic physical models of material behavior, structural response, damage mechanisms, and aging processes, offers a promising approach to improve monitoring capabilities and inform operation and maintenance planning. However, the associated technical challenges and model requirements are context-specific and vary widely across applications. To illustrate the relevance and potential of the topic, two application examples are presented. The first focuses on monitoring the modal characteristics of a prestressed road bridge, where strong sensitivity to temperature variations limits the diagnostic capabilities of conventional vibration-based global monitoring. The discussion highlights how environmental influences can obscure structural changes, and emphasizes that purely data-based approaches are inherently limited to detecting anomalies and do not enable comprehensive condition diagnostics. The second example explores a physics-informed monitoring approach for prestressed concrete bridges affected by hydrogen-induced stress corrosion cracking. T2 - SHMII-13 CY - Graz, Austria DA - 01.09.2025 KW - Hydrogen Stress Corrosion Cracking KW - SHM KW - Physics informed PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-643271 SN - 978-3-99161-057-1 DO - https://doi.org/10.3217/978-3-99161-057-1-039 SP - 245 EP - 251 PB - Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz CY - Graz, Austria AN - OPUS4-64327 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - George, Joyal K. A1 - von Wangenheim, Kristian A1 - Kaplan, Felix A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Hindersmann, Iris ED - Lienhart, Werner ED - Krüger, Markus T1 - Monitoring of civil engineering structures - current and future use cases N2 - Monitoring represents an effective approach for addressing the diverse challenges associated with the maintenance of civil engineering structures. It contributes to improving both the availability and safety of these structures. By increasing the amount of information available about the structure, monitoring supports better-informed decisions regarding its preservation. Due to the complexity of monitoring applications, specific use cases are outlined. A key advantage of these use cases is that new technologies can be tested within well-defined and limited scopes. The use cases monitoring of known, localized damage, monitoring of known deficits identified through reassessment or resulting from outdated design procedures and monitoring aimed at assessing traffic loads and their effects currently account for the majority of implemented monitoring measures. Their practical implementation is demonstrated through case studies from the Brandenburg State Road Authority. Additional use cases, such as monitoring to support structural inspections and monitoring of major structures, such as large viaducts, are gaining importance, with initial practical examples already present in Europe. Future applications reveal potential for expanded use, particularly in the context of monitoring to support predictive lifecycle management. This will become increasingly important in the implementation of digital twins, as announced in the national BIM master plan. Furthermore the concept of a Birth Certificate is intended to establish a reference state of the structure prior to commissioning, which can then be used for comparison with future measurements over time. The integration and interaction of these individual use cases pave the way for the implementation of digital twins. T2 - 13th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure CY - Graz, Austria DA - 01.09.2025 KW - Structural Health Monitoring KW - Use Cases KW - Bridges KW - Digital Twin PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-644422 DO - https://doi.org/10.3217/978-3-99161-057-1-033 SP - 203 EP - 208 PB - Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz CY - Graz AN - OPUS4-64442 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Hille, Falk A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Simon, Patrick A1 - Herrmann, Ralf A1 - Baeßler, Matthias ED - Döhler, Michael ED - Mélot, Adrien ED - Aenlle Lopez, Manuel T1 - System identification and model calibration of a steel road bridge N2 - The Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), in cooperation with the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), is working on a framework for integrating frequently updated structural models into an asset management process for bridge structures. A multi-span steel road bridge was selected as a test case for the development of this framework. In order for the structural model to represent the real behavior of the bridge with sufficient accuracy, model calibration is required. In this case, we have planned to calibrate the model based on the dynamic response of the bridge. To determine its dynamic properties, a multi-setup operational modal analysis was performed on one of the bridge spans. In parallel, a structural model of the span was developed based on the available design and service life information. Both eigenfrequencies and mode shapes were used as reference parameters to calibrate the model. A sensitivity analysis was performed to identify the most influential design parameters. Subsequently, a genetic algorithm was applied for minimizing the difference between measured and simulated characteristic responses. In the proposed paper, we summarize the measurements as well as the determination of the modal response of the bridge and describe the process of calibration of the structural model using the identified dynamic response. T2 - 11th International Operational Modal Analysis Conference (IOMAC 2025) CY - Rennes, France DA - 20.05.2025 KW - Bridge structure KW - Operational modal analysis KW - Model calibration PY - 2025 SN - 978-84-09-75120-4 SP - 114 EP - 121 PB - International Group of Operational Modal Analysis CY - Gijón, Spain AN - OPUS4-64416 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Farhan, Muhammad A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Thöns, Sebastian A1 - Gündel, M. T1 - Probabilistic cost modeling as a basis for optimizing inspection and maintenance of turbine support structures in offshore wind farms N2 - The operational management of offshore wind farms includes inspection and maintenance (I&M) of the wind turbine support structures. These activities are complex and influenced by numerous uncertain factors that affect their costs. The uncertainty in the I&M costs should be considered in decision value analyses performed to optimize I&M strategies for the turbine support structures. In this paper, we formulate a probabilistic parametric model to describe I&M costs for the common case in which a wind farm is serviced and maintained using a workboat-based strategy. The model is developed based on (a) interviews with a wind farm operator, engineering consultants, and operation and maintenance engineers, as well as (b) scientific literature. Our methodology involves deriving the probabilistic models of the cost model parameters based on intervals representing a subjective expert opinion on the foreseeable ranges of the parameter values. The probabilistic cost model is applied to evaluate the total I&M costs, and a sensitivity analysis is conducted to identify the main cost drivers. The model can be utilized to optimize I&M strategies at the component, structural system, and wind farm level. To illustrate its potential use, we apply it in a numerical study in which we optimize I&M strategies at the structural system level and identify and demonstrate a simplified approach of capturing uncertain I&M costs in the optimization. The simplified approach is generalized and made available for maintenance cost optimization of offshore wind turbine structures. KW - Inspection KW - Maintenance KW - Turbine support structures KW - Offshore wind KW - Costs PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-626144 DO - https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-461-2025 SN - 2366-7443 SN - 2366-7451 VL - 10 IS - 2 SP - 461 EP - 481 PB - Copernicus Publications CY - Göttingen AN - OPUS4-62614 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Hille, Falk A1 - Herrmann, Ralf A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Pitters, S. A1 - Wedel, F. A1 - Hindersmann, I. T1 - Developing a guideline for structural health monitoring of road bridges in Germany N2 - In recent years, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has become a useful and increasingly widely used tool for supporting lifetime extensions of existing bridges with known structural deficiencies or indications of potentially critical damages or damage processes. At the same time, methods and tools are emerging, which enable monitoring-informed predictive maintenance of new and existing bridges based on digital twins. The monitoring process – starting from the definition of monitoring actions and ending with decisions based on monitoring outcomes – is complex and requires expertise in structural engineering, operation and maintenance of bridges, metrology, and data analytics. To support German road authorities, engineering consultancies, building contractors and other stakeholders of the bridge management, the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) has initiated the development of a new guideline for applying SHM as part of the management of road bridges. The guideline will present various use cases and for each identified use case, it will propose a proven monitoring scheme. In addition, the guideline will provide guidance on assessing the benefits of SHM as well as a common approach to managing monitoring data as a systematic basis for integrating monitoring data in the bridge management. This contribution discusses the motivation, objectives, and scope of the guideline, describes its use case centric structure and outlines the proposed data management. T2 - IABMAS 2024 CY - Kopenhagen, Danmark DA - 24.06.2024 KW - Guideline KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Road bridges KW - Infrastructure PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-613947 SN - 978-1-032-77040-6 DO - https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003483755-236 SP - 2009 EP - 2017 PB - CRC Press AN - OPUS4-61394 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wedel, F. A1 - Pitters, S. A1 - Herrmann, Ralf A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Hille, Falk A1 - Hindersmann, I. T1 - Guideline for the strategic application of monitoring of road bridges in Germany N2 - Engineering structures are an important part of our transport infrastructure. Their failure is associated with high safety risks and economic damage. Ensuring the availability of these constructions and guaranteeing their operational safety are thus important tasks. Currently, maintenance of engineering structures is a reactive process and therefore not yet a predictive process. Every 3 to 6 years, the structures are visually inspected, all damages are documented and a condition grade is assigned to the structure based on the detected damages. Continuous data-providing methods such as monitoring are used only very occasionally. With the help of monitoring, condition data about the structures are continuously collected, which can be used for a better assessment of the structures. On the one hand, this would increase safety of engineering structures, and on the other hand, it makes the shift towards predictive maintenance management based on real-time data and predictions, where the onset of damage is detected before it occurs, possible in the first place. Monitoring plays therefore an important role in the management of the infrastructure. It is a crucial a step towards the digitalisation of our infrastructure and existing processes. Although there are many use cases for monitoring that have already been successfully implemented, monitoring is not yet widely used by German road authorities due to several challenges that were also identified within the scope of the project. Therefore, a guide has been developed in which the current obstacles related to monitoring are identified and possibilities for integrating monitoring into existing processes are offered. To ensure optimal alignment with the needs of road authorities, both an online survey and a workshop have been conducted. The results are summarised in a brochure that is made available to authorities to improve the use of monitoring in Germany. This paper presents the guideline and the brochure. T2 - 10th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring (EWSHM 2024) CY - Potsdam, Germany DA - 10.06.2024 KW - Verkehrsinfrastrukturen KW - Engineering Structures KW - Bridges KW - Structural Health Monitoring KW - Guideline PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-612821 UR - https://www.ndt.net/search/docs.php3?id=29582 DO - https://doi.org/10.58286/29582 SN - 1435-4934 VL - 29 IS - 7 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - NDT.net GmbH & Co. KG CY - Mayen AN - OPUS4-61282 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Simon, Patrick A1 - Hille, Falk A1 - Herrmann, Ralf A1 - Baeßler, Matthias T1 - Vibration-based system identification of a large steel box girder bridge N2 - The Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) collaborates with TNO to develop a software framework for automated calibration of structural models based on monitoring data. The ultimate goal is to include such models in the asset management process of engineering structures. As a basis for developing the framework, a multi-span road bridge consisting of ten simply supported steel box girders was selected as a test case. Our group measured output-only vibration data from one box girder under ambient conditions. From the data, we determined eigenfrequencies and mode shapes. In parallel, we developed a preliminary structural model of the box girder for the purpose of predicting its modal properties. In this contribution, we provide an overview of the measurement campaign, the operational modal analysis, the structural modeling and qualitatively compare the identified with the predicted modes. As an outlook, we discuss the further steps in the calibration process and future applications of the calibrated model. T2 - XII International Conference on Structural Dynamics (EURODYN 2023) CY - Delft, The Netherlands DA - 02.07.2023 KW - Verkehrsinfrastukturen KW - SHM KW - Model updating KW - System identification KW - Operational modal analysis PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-605041 DO - https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2647/18/182039 SN - 1742-6596 VL - 2647 IS - 18 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - IOP Publishing CY - Bristol AN - OPUS4-60504 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -