Intelligent Transportation Infrastructure Technologies for Condition Assessment and Structural Health Monitoring of Highway Bridges

The visual inspection routines mandated through the National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS) implemented after the 1967 catastrophic collapse of the Silver Bridge have nearly exclusively provided the framework for bridge management encompassing rehabilitation planning and reconstruction scheduling. Over the years, despite the numerous revisions of the NBIS to introduce special inspection procedures, such as for fracture critical and scour susceptible structures, it is evident that the visual inspection program falls short of ensuring a safe and efficient operational model for bridge management. All too often, imminent or unforeseen collapse predates reconstruction efforts and consequently the public is subjected to abrupt closures instead of anticipated and expediently scheduled rehabilitation projects. Sensor-based non-destructive condition assessment and anomaly detection technologies have long been proposed to supplement the limitations and subjectivity associated with the visual inspection program to provide timely and quantitative evaluation of the structural health of highway bridges. Presented is an overview of the role that intelligent transportation infrastructure technologies are increasingly assuming within bridge management as well as conceptual strategies for application of several monitoring approaches. Real-world field response measurements are also presented to demonstrate the current capabilities, typical data collection, and extraction of performance parameters from application of a wireless sensing network platform utilizing both strain transducers and accelerometers. Lastly, identification and localization of non-critical damage onset using a network of vibration sensors is explored through system identification and response prediction using forward innovations.