• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.917-933
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• 2016

In a prestressed concrete bridge, the magnitude of the prestress force (PF) decreases with time. This unexpected loss can cause failure of a bridge which makes prestress force identification (PFI) critical to evaluate bridge safety. However, it has been difficult to identify the PF non-destructively. Although some research has shown the feasibility of vibration based methods in PFI, the requirement of having a determinate exciting force in these methods hinders applications onto in-service bridges. Ideally, it will be efficient if the normal traffic could be treated as an excitation, but the load caused by vehicles is difficult to measure. Hence it prompts the need to investigate whether PF and moving load could be identified together. This paper presents a synergic identification method to determine PF and moving load applied on a simply supported prestressed concrete beam via the dynamic responses caused by this unknown moving load. This method consists of three parts: (i) the PF is transformed into an external pseudo-load localized in each beam element via virtual distortion method (VDM); (ii) then these pseudo-loads are identified simultaneously with the moving load via Duhamel Integral; (iii) the time consuming problem during the inversion of Duhamel Integral is overcome by the load-shape function (LSF). The method is examined against different cases of PFs, vehicle speeds and noise levels by means of simulations. Results show that this method attains a good degree of accuracy and efficiency, as well as robustness to noise.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.617-625
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• 2017

Prestress force identification (PFI) is crucial to maintain the safety of prestressed concrete bridges. A synergic identification method has been proposed recently by the authors that can determine the prestress force (PF) and the excitation force simultaneously in prestressed concrete beams with good accuracy. In this paper, the ability of this method in the application with prestressed concrete box-girder bridges is demonstrated. A reasonable assumption is made to capture the similarity of the dynamic behavior of the prestressed concrete box-girder bridge and a beam under a certain loading scenario, and the feasibility of this method for application in a prestressed box-girder bridge is affirmed. A comprehensive laboratory test program is conducted, and the effects of PF, excitation, measuring time and uncertainties are studied. Results show that the proposed method can predict the PF and the excitation force in a prestressed concrete box-girder accurately and has a great robustness against uncertainties.