Bridge Structural Health Monitoring

What is Bridge Structural Health Monitoring?

1

What can be monitored?

  • Cable Stay or Suspension Bridges
  • Viaducts
  • Arch Bridges
  • Bascule or Draw Bridges
  • Beam or Girder Bridges
  • Cantilever Bridges

 

2

What can be measured?

There are a multitude of options for monitoring the changes in a bridge. Each project will have its own unique requirements. The structural engineers will dictate such requirements which our experts can then provide the appropriate package.

3

What are the Features and Benefits?

  • Rapid assessment of bridge health
  • Ensure safety of the bridge
  • Detect early signs of failure
  • Assess structure’s safety following a major event
  • Reduce maintenance and repair costs
  • Extend the life of an aging bridge
  • Improve knowledge about complex bridges

4

The most widely used packages for Bridge Monitoring:

  1. Vibration: Structural health, behaviour and modal analysis
  2. Strain: Fatigue and rainflow analysis
  3. Displacement: Joints, cracks and differential settlements of foundations
  4. Load: Cablestay and reaction forces
  5. Environment: Wind speed and direction, humidity, solar radiation and temperature
  6. Tilt: Tilting of piers or towers

Analysis Capabilities
 

A typical setup will provide valuable information about the health of the bridge. Thresholds for acceptable changes in the structure could be set to provide automatic notifications. After a natural disaster, at an instance valuable information about the change in structure of the bridge can be provided. Safety decisions about the viability of the structure at any given time can be made on credible data and analysis.

The local regulations outlining the requirements for the monitoring instruments; other factors such as the type of the bridge, its age, foundation type and seismicity of the area are amongst important considerations when specifying bridge instrumentation.

Dynamic measurements are a critical requirement in bridge monitoring as dynamic loads from the traffic and other natural causes such as gale winds, tornados and earthquakes can cause a permanent damage with serious consequences. Timely and precise measurements of pre-defined parameters will provide the data to understand the behaviour of the structure to monitor their rate of change.