Structural damage identification of bridges from passing test vehicles

Abstract

This paper presents two approaches for the structural damage identification of a bridge from the dynamic response recorded from a test vehicle during its passage over the bridge. Using the acceleration response recorded by the vibration sensors mounted on a test vehicle during its passage over the bridge, along with the computed displacement response, the bending stiffness of the bridge can be determined using either: (1) the frequency-domain method based on the improved directed stiffness method with the identified frequency and corresponding mode shape, or (2) the time-domain method based on the residual vector of the least squares method with a fourth-order displacement moment. By comparing the bending stiffness values identified from the vehicle-collected data for the bridge under the undamaged and damaged states that are monitored regularly by the test vehicle, the bridge damage location and severity can be identified. Through numerical simulations and field tests, the present approaches are shown to be effective and feasible.