Recent improvements in remote sensing technologies have shown that techniques such as photogrammetry and laser scanning can resolve geometric details at the millimeter scale. This is significant because it has expanded the range of structural health monitoring scenarios where these techniques can be used. In this work, we explore how 3D geometric measurements extracted from photogrammetric point clouds can be used to evaluate the performance of a highway bridge during a static load test. Various point cloud registration and deformation tracking algorithms are explored. Included is an introduction to a novel deformation tracking algorithm that uses the interpolation technique of kriging as the basis for measuring the geometric changes. The challenging nature of 3D point cloud data means that statistical methods must be employed to adequately evaluate the deformation field of the bridge. The results demonstrate a pathway from the collection of digital photographs to a mechanical analysis with results that capture the bridge deformation within one standard deviation of the mean reported value. These results are promising given that the midspan bridge deformation for the load test is only a few millimeters. Ultimately, the approaches evaluated in this work yielded errors on the order of 1 mm or less for ground truth deflections as small as 3.5 mm. Future work for this method will investigate using these results for updating finite element models.

While finite element (FE) modeling is widely used for ultimate strength assessments of structural systems, incorporating complex distortions and imperfections into FE models remains a challenge. Conventional methods typically rely on assumptions about the periodicity of distortions through spectral or modal methods. However, these approaches are not viable under the many realistic scenarios where these assumptions are invalid. Research efforts have consistently demonstrated the ability of point cloud data, generated through laser scanning or photogrammetry-based methods, to accurately capture structural deformations at the millimeter scale. This enables the updating of numerical models to capture the exact structural configuration and initial imperfections without the need for unrealistic assumptions. This research article investigates the use of point cloud data for updating the initial distortions in a FE model of a stiffened ship deck panel, for the purposes of ultimate strength estimation. The presented approach has the additional benefit of being able to explicitly account for measurement uncertainty in the analysis. Calculations using the updated FE models are compared against ground truth test data as well as FE models updated using standard spectral methods. The results demonstrate strength estimation that is comparable to existing approaches, with the additional advantages of uncertainty quantification and applicability to a wider range of application scenarios.