Author(s):
Cruz, Paulo J. S.
; Salgado, R.
Date: 2009
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/9146
Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Description
The important advances achieved in the modal identification, sensors and
structural monitoring of bridges have motivated the bridge engineering community to
develop damage detection methods based on vibration monitoring. Some of these methods
have already been demonstrated under certain conditions in bridges with deliberate damage
(Farrar et al., 1998). However, the performance of these methods for damage detection in
bridges has not been fully proven so far and more research needs to be done in this
direction. In this article, six damage detection methods based on vibration monitoring are
evaluated with two case studies. Firstly, the dynamic simulation and modal parameters of a
cracked composite bridge are obtained. Here, the damage detection methods are evaluated
under different crack depth, extension of the damage and noise level. Secondly, damage is
identified in a reinforced concrete bridge. This bridge was deliberately damaged in two phases. In this example, damage detection methods which do not require comparison
between different structural conditions were applied. In the first case study, evaluated
damage detection methods could detect damage for all the damage scenarios; however,
their performance was notably affected when noise was introduced to the vibration
parameters. In the second case study, the evaluated methods could successfully localize the
damage induced to the bridge.