Remote monitoring of bridge stay cables

Cable forces are highly important parameters for the structural behaviour of cable stayed bridges. In recent years, several new developments were accomplished to receive more exact and reliable data of these parameters. While such tools are becoming common for inspection of cable stayed bridges, long-term or permanent monitoring of cable forces is still limited to research programs or few outstanding bridges. The Austrian research project ISyS aims to improve and implement the systems for cable force measurements in a way, that permanent monitoring will be affordable and easy interpretable. Beside the use of high-tech sensors and hardware, the combination with other systems like semi-active dampers offer a most promising approach to reach that target. Sensors, processing units and power supply are installed to these dampers to reach their optimum efficiency. The combination with force measurements enables to present a complete solution for stay cables.