Development of a Field Monitoring System for the Northside Drive Bridge

This project aims to create a system for real-time structural monitoring of bridges, ultimately offering a reliable method to accurately estimate a bridge’s remaining fatigue life. Standard procedures exist to calculate the remaining fatigue life of steel bridges. However, such procedures rely on conservative estimates of the live load stress range that do not account for system-level behavior. As such, these procedures can underestimate the service life of the bridge. Data acquisition (DAQ) systems can measure in-service bridge systems’ structural response and stresses. Leveraging such systems with fatigue analysis procedures allows the remaining fatigue life to be more accurately estimated, often extending critical bridge systems’ service life. In addition, the use of DAQ systems can reduce unnecessary retrofitting and inspection expenses, allowing the focus to go toward other critical bridges. A bridge for long-term monitoring was identified for this project that meets the following criteria: constructed prior to modern fatigue provisions and use of fatigue-sensitive details. For long-term monitoring, a data acquisition (DAQ) system was used to record raw strain data and output a stress range histogram using the rainflow cycle counting method. Using MATLAB, the stress range histogram from the structural monitoring system was used to generate an algorithm that outputs the remaining fatigue life of the bridge. Additionally, the preliminary measured strain data was used to determine the neutral axis of a girder to determine whether the bridge is composite without the need for bridge plans. A CSIBridge model was developed to compare measured data results and determine the model’s accuracy. The DAQ system is a cost-effective and time-efficient method for bridge long-term monitoring.

Date

2024-07-22

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Text

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