Passive Structural Health Monitoring of Connecticut’s Bridge Infrastructure
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 13, Issue 4
Abstract
This paper reports on a long-term bridge monitoring program in Connecticut. Monitoring systems have been designed and installed on a series of different bridges, beginning in 1999. Ambient data are collected from normal traffic, using strain gauges, accelerometers, tiltmeters, and thermocouples. This paper discusses three of the monitored bridges, demonstrating the benefits of using long-term monitoring systems to provide information on the structural performance that is useful both to those responsible for the bridge infrastructure and to researchers interested in bridge monitoring. The extensive data developed from multiyear monitoring have been used to create benchmarks for passive structural health monitoring for each of the three bridges. Relationships and trends discovered for each of the bridges, used for the creation of the benchmarks, and stored in a database, are discussed.
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Acknowledgments
For the past two decades, the University of Connecticut, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Connecticut Department of Transportation have been involved in monitoring the state’s bridge infrastructure, with funding provided by the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. The Connecticut Transportation Institute at the University of Connecticut has provided assistance in this work. The many graduate students who have participated in the project are gratefully acknowledged, some of whom are listed in the references.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 13 • Issue 4 • December 2007
Pages: 330 - 339
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Sep 29, 2006
Accepted: Mar 27, 2007
Published online: Dec 1, 2007
Published in print: Dec 2007
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