Application of Wireless Sensing System for the Wuyuan Steel Arch Bridge

Duo to the low cost and convenient installation compared with the traditional wire-based systems, wireless sensing systems have attracted more and more researches in recent years. More validation studies on the performances of theses wireless smart sensing systems are essential so that they can serve as economical substitutes to the traditional wire-based systems. In this paper, an academic wireless monitoring system with smart sensing units developed at Stanford University and Michigan University is applied for the ambient vibration study of a steel arch bridge in China. The bridge with 324m long spans the Wuyuan Bay in Xiamen, China. Acceleration responses of the ambient vibration of the bridge measured by the wireless units are used to identify the modal properties of the bridge based on the stochastic subspace identification method. It is shown that compared with the modes calculated by the finite element model, the ambient vibration data collected by the wireless monitoring system are accurate and these data can be used for the identification of the dynamic properties of the bridge.