Bridge Safety Monitoring Using: Coupled Current Device Images

A new method of global diagnosis for bridge safety monitoring using high-resolution coupled current device (CCD) images is presented. Its advantages are as follows: ( a) no sensors need to be attached to the structure, ( b) no mathematical modeling is required (such as finite element methods), ( c) a probability-based diagnosis approach is used to deal with measurement noise associated with image data, and ( d) CCD cameras are affordable now and are expected to continue to drop in price, which will make this new technique workable for implementation. The new method was applied in the laboratory to a bridge structure model, as presented. Experimental results show that the method is able to identify stiffness losses as small as 3 percent for both their presence and their location. It is concluded that the proposed approach is promising for experimentation in the field.