Integration of Sensors for Improved Damage Identification

Bridges are valuable assets to a society to overcome barriers of connection. The dependence on the bridge increases the demand for safety and reliability of the structure. However, the operational lifetime of bridges will be affected by the integration of bridge elements and their resistance to deterioration and damage. In this paper, the identification of damage in bridges using the influence line is presented. This approach is based identification and localizing of damage from a Modified Displacement-Based Index (MDBI) value. The effect of transverse position of the vehicle on the measurement of displacement sensor while crossing the bridge is addressed. Additionally, the road roughness effect has been considered to create a noise environment on the measured displacement response. The integration of strain sensor with displacement sensor to improve the damage identification have been addressed. The effect of noise has been greatly reduced by introducing strain based normalizing factor. Two case scenarios have been presented and the comparison of the previous DBI method and the MDBI method have been presented. In both cases, the MDBI successfully located the damage location against the odds in dynamic response effect and the noise.