This paper addresses operational modal analysis (OMA) and continuous dynamic monitoring (CDM) of two bridges. One of them is installed with Tuned Mass Dampers (TMDs) while another one is a normal bridge. Two ambient vibration tests were performed on these two bridges respectively. It is observed that not only installation of TMDs but also environmental factors influence the variations of structural frequencies, which may mask the subtle change induced by small structural changes. As a result, continuous dynamic monitoring systems were implemented on these two bridges, in order to evaluate efficiency of the TMD system, remove the environmental effects and build reliable damage indices that are only sensitive to structural changes. The results of CDM of these two bridges during several years are presented. Software systems developed for OMA and CDM are also introduced.
This paper presents the development of a continuous dynamic monitoring System and its applications to different structures, with the purpose of understanding structural real behaviours under operational conditions and detecting early structural modifications. The first part of paper introduces a complete continuous dynamic System, consists of signal acquisition and communication, automated signal processing and management, investigation of the interaction between structures and its environmental/operational conditions, feature extraction and detection of structural modification.
The rest of paper describes the applications of continuous dynamic monitoring System to different structures such as a wind turbine System and a highway bridge.
This paper presents the continuous dynamic measurements of an aging prestressed box-beam bridge during the period from 2000 to 2013, which consists of dynamic properties and environmental/operational factors, as well as the Variation of the extracted health features after removing the environmental/operational effects. Firstly, the variations of frequency estimates, temperatures and traffic loads from 2000 to 2013 are described. Subsequently, correlation analysis between them indicates the nonlinear influences of the temperature on the frequency estimates. The Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) method is used to remove the environmental/operational effects and the health index is proposed by performing the Novelty Detection analysis of the residual errors. Finally, the variations of the health index may indicate clear structural modifications that can be also characterized by the long term monitoring of the dynamic strain in the prestressed cable.
The Westend Bridge is located on the A100 Highway in Berlin. An integrated continuous dynamic monitoring system, composed of 20 velocity sensors, 5 temperature sensors, 3 strain gauges, 1 crack sensor and 2 inclination sensors, was implemented by the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in 2000. The system runs continuously with occasional intermittence and led to a huge amount of data over a 14-year span. In this article, variations of the strain, crack and inclination measurements during the last 14 years are presented. It is noted that the observed crack and inclination of the bridge are strongly influenced by seasonal temperature variation. It further induces change in the relationship between the strains measured in both concrete and prestressed tendon. Application of k-means cluster Analysis technique in both the crack and strain measurements can partition them into different seasonal phases by identifying ‘turning points’ that indicate annual periodical bridge change. In the period of these two ‘turning points’, a strong linear relation of the strains in two materials is observed. In the rest of the year, a nonlinear relationship between the strains recorded in both the concrete and the prestressed tendon is noted. The possible reason is the additional thermal load due to the change in temperature difference between the bridge’s surface and soffit. Finally, a health index in a Framework of regression model and process control theory is proposed by investigating the linear relationship between the strains in concrete and prestressed tendon. The tendency of the health index in the 14 years may suggest the long-term bridge change during that time frame.
The implementation of continuous dynamic monitoring systems in two bridges, in Portugal, is enabled to detect the occurrence of very significant environmental and operational effects on the modal properties of these bridges, based on automated processing of massive amounts of monitoring data collected by a set of accelerometers and thermal sensors over several years.
In order to remove or mitigate such environmental/operational effects with the purpose of damage detection, two different statistical methods have been adopted. One of them is the multiple linear regression by performing nonlinear correlation analysis between measured modal properties and environmental/operational variables. Another one is principal component regression based on the identification of the linear subspace within the modal properties without using measured values of environmental and operational variables.
This paper presents a comparison of the performance of these two alternative approaches on the basis of continuous monitoring data acquired from two instrumented bridges and simulated damage scenarios. It is observed that different methods show similar capacity in removing environmental effects, and the multiple linear regression method is slightly more sensitive to structural damage.