Framework of Damage Detection in Vehicle-Bridge Coupled System: Application to Bridge Scour Monitoring

Most vibration-based damage identification methods make use of measurements directly from bridge structures with attached sensors. The present study aimed to develop new methodologies to eventually detect bridge damages such as scour using the dynamic response of the vehicle. A framework of damage identification and an optimization method was developed first. Secondly, a new methodology using the transmissibility of vehicle and bridge responses was developed to detect bridge damages. Then, a tractor-trailer test system was designed to obtain reliable response and extract bridge modal properties from the dynamic response of moving vehicles. These developed methodologies were applied to detect scour damage from the response of bridge and/or vehicles. The scour effect on a single pile was studied and methods of scour damage detections were proposed. A monitoring system using fiber optic sensors was designed and tested in the laboratory and is being applied to a field bridge. Finally, the scour effect on the response of the entire bridge and the traveling vehicle was also investigated under the bridge-vehicle-wave interaction, which in turn was used to detect the bridge scour.