Bridge Health Monitoring Using Accelerometer Responses to Passing Traffic

This paper develops a method of bridge structure health monitoring using bridge midspan acceleration response and the concept of Bridge Weigh-in-Motion (BWIM). This method does not require any traffic control and works solely with the responses to regular passing truck traffic. Traditional BWIM systems use bridge strain responses to infer vehicle axle weights, but the strain responses are not damage sensitive. Bridge accelerations, on the other hand, vary with the change in the bridge condition at any location. Therefore, this paper focuses on a statistical analysis of the acceleration-based BWIM results to monitor bridge condition. The acceleration-based BWIM system has been found to be very effective in detection change in the bridge condition by showing significant change in the statistical properties of the BWIM results with different damage percentage of the bridge.