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

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.661-671
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• 2022

Stayed cables are the key components for transmitting loads in cable-stayed bridges. Therefore, it is very important to evaluate the cable force condition to ensure bridge safety. An online condition assessment and anomaly localization method is proposed for cables based on the spatiotemporal correlation of grouped cable forces. First, an anomaly sensitive feature index is obtained based on the distribution characteristics of grouped cable forces. Second, an adaptive anomaly detection method based on the k-nearest neighbor rule is used to perform dissimilarity measurements on the extracted feature index, and such a method can effectively remove the interference of environment factors and vehicle loads on online condition assessment of the grouped cable forces. Furthermore, an online anomaly isolation and localization method for stay cables is established, and the complete decomposition contributions method is used to decompose the feature matrix of the grouped cable forces and build an anomaly isolation index. Finally, case studies were carried out to validate the proposed method using an in-service cable-stayed bridge equipped with a structural health monitoring system. The results show that the proposed approach is sensitive to the abnormal distribution of grouped cable forces and is robust to the influence of interference factors. In addition, the proposed approach can also localize the cables with abnormal cable forces online, which can be successfully applied to the field monitoring of cables for cable-stayed bridges.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.83-101
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• 2005

This paper summarizes the application of a rational methodology for the structural assessment of older reinforced concrete Tunisian bridges. This methodology is based on ambient vibration measurement of the bridge, identification of the structure's modal signature and finite element model updating. The selected case study is the Boujnah bridge of the Tunis-Msaken Highway. This bridge is made of a continuous four-span simply supported reinforced concrete slab without girders resting on elastomeric bearings at each support. Ambient vibration tests were conducted on the bridge using a data acquisition system with nine force-balance accelerometers placed at selected locations of the bridge. The Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition technique was applied to extract the dynamic characteristics of the bridge. The finite element model was updated in order to obtain a reasonable correlation between experimental and numerical modal properties. For the model updating part of the study, the parameters selected for the updating process include the concrete modulus of elasticity, the elastic bearing stiffness and the foundation spring stiffnesses. The primary objective of the paper is to demonstrate the use of the Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition technique combined with model updating to provide data that could be used to assess the structural condition of the selected bridge. The application of the proposed methodology led to a relatively faithful linear elastic model of the bridge in its present condition.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.93-100
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• 2021

The objective of this research is to evaluate of fire damage for steel-concrete composite bridge superstructure and PSC bridge superstructure under highway bridge exposed to fire loading. To enhance the accuracy and efficiency of the numerical analysis, the proposed heat flow fire analysis method is implemented in ANSYS. The proposed heat flow analysis method is applied to fire damage analysis and performance evaluation for Buchen and Yangsan highway bridge. The result of analysis, temperature of concrete slab and lower flange of steel-concrete composite bridge superstructure are exceed the critical temperature. Also, temperature of slab, lower and upper flange, web of PSC bridge superstructure are exceed the critical temperature. However, the major component, tendon, did not exceed the critical temperature.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.153-166
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• 2023

Health monitoring of civil infrastructures, in particular, old bridges that are still in service, has become more than necessary, given the risk that a possible degradation or failure of these infrastructures can induce on the safety of users in addition to the resulting commercial and economic impact. Bridge integrity assessment has attracted significant research efforts over the past forty years with the aim of developing new damage identification methods applicable to real structures. The bridge of Ouled Mimoun (Tlemcen, Algeria) is one of the oldest railway structure in the country. It was built in 1889. This bridge, which is too low with respect to the level of the road, has suffered multiple shocks from various machines that caused considerable damage to its central part. The present work aims to analyze the stability of this bridge by identifying damages and evaluating the damage rate in different parts of the structure on the basis of a finite element model. The applied method is based on an inverse analysis of the normal stress responses that were calculated from the corresponding recorded strains, during the passage of a real train, by means of a set of strain gauges placed on certain elements of the bridge. The results obtained from the inverse analysis made it possible to successfully locate areas that were really damaged and to estimate the damage rate. These results were also used to detect an excessive rigidity in certain elements due to the presence of plates, which were neglected in the numerical reference model. In the case of the continuous bridge monitoring, this developed method will be a very powerful tool as a smart health monitoring system, allowing engineers to take in time decisions in the event of bridge damage.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.203-223
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• 2014

The extensive use of prestressed reinforced concrete (PSC) highway bridges in marine environment drastically increases the sensitivity to both fatigue-and corrosion-induced damage of their critical structural components during their service lives. Within this scenario, an integrated method that is capable of evaluating the fatigue reliability, identifying a condition-based maintenance, and predicting the remaining service life of its critical components is therefore needed. To accomplish this goal, a procedure for fatigue reliability prediction of PSC highway bridges is proposed in the present study. Vehicle-bridge coupling vibration analysis is performed for obtaining the equivalent moment ranges of critical section of bridges under typical fatigue truck models. Three-dimensional nonlinear mathematical models of fatigue trucks are simplified as an eleven-degree-of-freedom system. Road surface roughness is simulated as zero-mean stationary Gaussian random processes using the trigonometric series method. The time-dependent stress-concentration factors of reinforcing bars and prestressing tendons are accounted for more accurate stress ranges determination. The limit state functions are constructed according to the Miner's linear damage rule, the time-dependent S-N curves of prestressing tendons and the site-specific stress cycle prediction. The effectiveness of the methodology framework is demonstrated to a T-type simple supported multi-girder bridge for fatigue reliability evaluation.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2017

The long-term effect of ambient temperature on bridge strain is an important and challenging problem. To investigate this issue, one year data of strain and ambient temperature of a long-span cable-stayed bridge is studied in this paper. The measured strain-time history is decomposed into two parts to obtain the strains due to vehicle load and temperature alone. A linear regression model between the temperature and the strain due to temperature is established. It is shown that for every $1^{\circ}C$ increase in temperature, the stress is increased by 0.148 MPa. Furthmore, the extreme value distributions of the strains due to vehicle load, temperature and the combination effect of them during the remaining service period are estimated by the average conditional exceedance rate approach. This approach avoids the problem of declustering of data to ensure independence. The estimated results demonstrate that the 95% quantile of the extreme strain distribution due to temperature is up to $1.488{\times}10^{-4}$ which is 2.38 times larger than that due to vehicle load. The study also indicates that the estimated extreme strain can reflect the long-term effect of temperature on bridge strain state, which has reference significance for the reliability estimation and safety assessment.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.379-393
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• 2012

Many steel bridge infrastructures in the world are getting older, and a large number of these structures are in need of maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement. Most of them are subjected to corrosion due to exposure to aggressive environmental conditions and inadequate maintenance, causing reduction of their carrying capacities. In order to have an adequate bridge management, it is of paramount importance to develop an efficient, accurate and rapid condition assessment method which can be used to make reliable decisions affecting the cost and safety. Therefore, a simple and accurate method of calculating remaining yield and tensile strength by using a concept of representative effective thickness with correlation of initial thickness and maximum corroded depth is proposed in this study, based on the results of many tensile coupon tests of corroded plates obtained from a steel plate girder with severe corrosion, used for about 100 years. Furthermore, a strength reduction diagram which will be very useful for bridge inspection engineers to make rational decisions about the maintenance management of aged steel bridge infrastructures is presented.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.45-54
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance of precast segmental PSC bridge columns with regard to P-delta effects. A model of precast segmental PSC bridge columns was tested under a constant axial load and a cyclically reversed horizontal load. A computer program, RCAHEST(Reinforced Concrete Analysis in Higher Evaluation System Technology), was used for the analysis of reinforced concrete structures. In addition to the material nonlinear properties, an algorithm for the problem of large displacement that may result in additional deformation has been formulated using total Lagrangian formulation. This study documents the testing of precast segmental PSC bridge columns under cyclic loading, and presents conclusions based on the experimental and analytical findings.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.239-245
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• 2002

Many civil and infrastructures continue to be used despite aging and the associated potential for damage accumulation. Therefore, the ability to monitor the health of these systems is becoming increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to propose a real-time health monitoring system of cable-stayed bridge, based-on non-destructive measurement. And also this paper focuses on the safety assessment for bridge from health monitoring system to accomplish this safety assesment. Using the proposed health monitoring system, it helps bridge maintenance and reduces the economic cost of a life-cycle costs. Also it give important data to develop the design and analysis method for cable-stayed bridges.