Remote Monitoring of Bridges in Connecticut

Following the Mianus River Bridge collapse in 1983, the State of Connecticut began a concerted effort to develop and use remotely accessible monitoring systems placed on bridges to continuously evaluate their movements. This is being done to answer questions on the performance of existing bridges, to refine techniques and equipment which could be used in the evaluation of different bridge components and to develop approaches that could be used to provide a continuous indication of a bridge's structural integrity. This work has led to a federally funded research project to implement remote monitoring systems on several bridges in the State. The first of these systems has been installed on a continuous three-span, post-tensioned curved concrete box-girder bridge. The remote monitoring of this structure is accomplished with sensors that measure strain, tilt, temperature and acceleration. This system is used to describe the behavior of this structure and to provide structural performance information. Considerations include short-term monitoring to explore the live load and temperature affects and long-term monitoring over the course of several years to examine variations in the structural behavior.