• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.995-1015
• /
• 2016

In the design and condition assessment of bridges, it is usually necessary to take into consideration the extreme conditions which are not expected to occur within a short time period and thus require an extrapolation from observations of limited duration. Long-term structural health monitoring (SHM) provides a rich database to evaluate the extreme conditions. This paper focuses on the extrapolation of extreme traffic load effects on bridges using long-term monitoring data of structural strain. The suspension Tsing Ma Bridge (TMB), which carries both highway and railway traffic and is instrumented with a long-term SHM system, is taken as a testbed for the present study. Two popular extreme value extrapolation methods: the block maxima approach and the peaks-over-threshold approach, are employed to extrapolate the extreme stresses induced by highway traffic and railway traffic, respectively. Characteristic values of the extreme stresses with a return period of 120 years (the design life of the bridge) obtained by the two methods are compared. It is found that the extrapolated extreme stresses are robust to the extrapolation technique. It may owe to the richness and good quality of the long-term strain data acquired. These characteristic extremes are also compared with the design values and found to be much smaller than the design values, indicating conservative design values of traffic loading and a safe traffic-loading condition of the bridge. The results of this study can be used as a reference for the design and condition assessment of similar bridges carrying heavy traffic, analogous to the TMB.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 1996.10a
• /
• pp.131-137
• /
• 1996

To perform condition monitoring of P.C. Box girder bridge under ambient traffic, dynamic characteristics were identified using the results of load test an analysis. It was found that natural frequencies obtained from the measured acceleration data for the forced vibration part and free vibration part were nearly identical. Thus it can be concluded that dynamic parameters are properly determined under ambient traffic condition. Finite element model for analysis was calibrated using measured frequencies. Change of dynamic characteristics were predicted through analysis of the established finite element model with anticipated change.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.381-395
• /
• 2009

The paper presents a case study in which the structural condition assessment of the East Bay bridge in Gibsonton, Florida is evaluated with the help of remote health monitoring techniques. The bridge is a four-span, continuous, deck-type reinforced concrete structure supported on prestressed pile bents, and is instrumented with smart Fiber Optic Sensors. The sensors used for remote health monitoring are the newly emerged Fabry-Perot (FP), and are both surface-mounted and embedded in the deck. The sensing system can be accessed remotely through fast Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), which permits the evaluation of the bridge behavior under live traffic loads. The bridge was open to traffic since March 2005, and the collected structural data have been continuously analyzed since. The data revealed an increase in strain readings, which suggests a progression in damage. Recent visual observations also indicated the presence of longitudinal cracks along the bridge length. After the formation of these cracks, the sensors readings were analyzed and used to extrapolate the values of the maximum stresses at the crack location. The data obtained were also compared to initial design values of the bridge under factored gravity and live loads. The study showed that the proposed structural health monitoring technique proved to provide an efficient mean for condition assessment of bridge structures providing it is implemented and analyzed with care.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.40-52
• /
• 2011

This paper develops a traffic condition decision algorithm to improve the reliability of traffic information on urban streets. This research is reestablished the criteria of qualitative traffic condition categorization and proposed a new qualitative traffic condition decision types and decision measures. The developed algorithm can be classified into 9 types for qualitative traffic condition in consideration of historical time series of speed changes and traffic patterns. The performance of the algorithm is verified through individual matching analysis using the radar detector data in Ansan city. The results of this paper is expected to help promotion of the traffic information processing system, real-time traffic flow monitoring and management, use of historical traffic information, etc.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.85-95
• /
• 2009

Congestion on expressways is increasing in spite of continuous road construction. In enlargement of expressway capacity to lessen congestion, a long period is needed and in the case of traffic congestion, it would be impossible to avoid long periods of traffic congestion. So, it is necessary to cope with traffic congestion through continuous traffic condition monitoring, analysis of the causes of congestion and the development of alternatives before traffic conditions worsen. A congestion index that can express traffic operating conditions measurably is needed to monitor those conditions. Thus, in this research, a new congestion index, the Traffic Condition Index (TCI), is developed. TCI is able to evaluate roads that have different grades (or design speeds) and to judge traffic condition as good, fair and poor (congested). In addition, TCI has merits in that it can strengthen the function of existing Freeway Traffic Management Systems (FTMS) and can be applied to congestion management easily: TCI calculates congestion intensity and severity using data obtained from existing FTMS. In order to validate TCI, it was applied to the Kyungbu Expressway and the Seohaean Expressway. As a result, TCI shows a good performance in the aspect of applicability and ability of presentation of traffic conditions compared with travel speed and Travel Time Index (TTI).

• Journal of Convergence Society for SMB
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.5-10
• /
• 2015

With the advance of ICT, understanding the condition of network and analysing network monitoring have become an important issue. On the TCP/IP network, SNMP is the typical protocol that catches the condition of network by using polling method. If polling method is implemented for a long period, to catch the change of the condition of the network is not easy. On the other hand, in case of short-term polling, even if it could catch the condition of the network in real time, responsive messages to results of the polling cause the increase of traffic and therefore burden the network. There have been studies to control the overhead of responsive messages by controlling the polling period. However, not considering the characteristics of an agent, and running randomly, they cannot decrease the overhead although they would have an instant effect. This paper suggests an efficient polling method that decreases the traffic overhead of polling and catches the condition of the network in real time. Proposed method an polling for a short period and gave weight based on the characteristics of agents to catch the network condition, and a manager decided polling differentially based on the weight so that it decreased the overhead of polling traffic.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.723-732
• /
• 2019

Globally road transport networks are subjected to continuous levels of stress from increasing loading and environmental effects. As the most popular mean of transport in the UK the condition of this civil infrastructure is a key indicator of economic growth and productivity. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems can provide a valuable insight to the true condition of our aging infrastructure. In particular, monitoring of the displacement of a bridge structure under live loading can provide an accurate descriptor of bridge condition. In the past B-WIM systems have been used to collect traffic data and hence provide an indicator of bridge condition, however the use of such systems can be restricted by bridge type, assess issues and cost limitations. This research provides a non-contact low cost AI based solution for vehicle classification and associated bridge displacement using computer vision methods. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been adapted to develop the QUBYOLO vehicle classification method from recorded traffic images. This vehicle classification was then accurately related to the corresponding bridge response obtained under live loading using non-contact methods. The successful identification of multiple vehicle types during field testing has shown that QUBYOLO is suitable for the fine-grained vehicle classification required to identify applied load to a bridge structure. The process of displacement analysis and vehicle classification for the purposes of load identification which was used in this research adds to the body of knowledge on the monitoring of existing bridge structures, particularly long span bridges, and establishes the significant potential of computer vision and Deep Learning to provide dependable results on the real response of our infrastructure to existing and potential increased loading.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.119-128
• /
• 2008

On the many highways, severe traffic congestions happen chronically and make traffic problems like reduction of mobility because of rapid increase of vehicles though road construction has been last. In order to solve these traffic problems, it is needed to find the trend and the symptom of traffic congestion and to analyze the cause of congestion and the(spatial) range affected by congestion. To develop the traffic condition monitoring index prior to doing all those things is most important. With this reason, many countries including U.S. had been developed the congestion criteria and indices. In this paper, applicability and characteristics of existing traffic congestion indices were considered and the direction for development of a new traffic condition index was suggested to achieve an effective traffic management.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.24 no.5
• /
• pp.617-630
• /
• 2019

Currently most of the vision-based structural identification research focus either on structural input (vehicle location) estimation or on structural output (structural displacement and strain responses) estimation. The structural condition assessment at global level just with the vision-based structural output cannot give a normalized response irrespective of the type and/or load configurations of the vehicles. Combining the vision-based structural input and the structural output from non-contact sensors overcomes the disadvantage given above, while reducing cost, time, labor force including cable wiring work. In conventional traffic monitoring, sometimes traffic closure is essential for bridge structures, which may cause other severe problems such as traffic jams and accidents. In this study, a completely non-contact structural identification system is proposed, and the system mainly targets the identification of bridge unit influence line (UIL) under operational traffic. Both the structural input (vehicle location information) and output (displacement responses) are obtained by only using cameras and computer vision techniques. Multiple cameras are synchronized by audio signal pattern recognition. The proposed system is verified with a laboratory experiment on a scaled bridge model under a small moving truck load and a field application on a footbridge on campus under a moving golf cart load. The UILs are successfully identified in both bridge cases. The pedestrian loads are also estimated with the extracted UIL and the predicted weights of pedestrians are observed to be in acceptable ranges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.139-150
• /
• 2017

The structural strain plays a significant role in structural condition assessment of in-service bridges in terms of structural bearing capacity, structural reliability level and entire safety redundancy. Therefore, it has been one of the most important parameters concerned by researchers and engineers engaged in structural health monitoring (SHM) practices. In this paper, an SHM system instrumented on the Jiubao Bridge located in Hangzhou, China is firstly introduced. This system involves nine subsystems and has been continuously operated for five years since 2012. As part of the SHM system, a total of 166 fiber Bragg grating (FBG) strain sensors are installed on the bridge to measure the dynamic strain responses of key structural components. Based on the strain monitoring data acquired in recent two years, the strain-based structural condition assessment of the Jiubao Bridge is carried out. The wavelet multi-resolution algorithm is applied to separate the temperature effect from the raw strain data. The obtained strain data under the normal traffic and wind condition and under the typhoon condition are examined for structural safety evaluation. The structural condition rating of the bridge in accordance with the AASHTO specification for condition evaluation and load and resistance factor rating of highway bridges is performed by use of the processed strain data in combination with finite element analysis. The analysis framework presented in this study can be used as a reference for facilitating the assessment, inspection and maintenance activities of in-service bridges instrumented with long-term SHM system.