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Summary Structural health monitoring (SHM) of bridges has gained rapid development in the past few years. This paper describes application of SHM on long‐span bridges in China, with the aim to illustrate its practical value. A short review of its development and practice is firstly introduced. Three case studies are subsequently presented on utilization of SHM data in engineering practice. In the first case study, a ship collision incident is analyzed using SHM data. An alarm is sent and confirmed when the collision occurred, and mode parameters are identified with GPS measurements to evaluate the bridge condition. In the second case study, damage of expansion joints in a suspension bridge is assessed with girder end displacement measurements. Malfunction of viscous damper is found to correlate with cumulative displacement. The results show that cumulative displacement can be used for condition assessment of expansion joints. In the third case study, the performance of tuned mass dampers is evaluated with wind and vibration measurements before and after tuned mass damper installation. Through explanation of these case studies, the paper illustrates how to distill useful insights from SHM data, which could be instructive for further research in this field.

SummaryDetection of potential damages is of much significance for aging bridges, which has attracted extensive attention in recent years. In this paper, a damage detection method is proposed utilizing dynamic displacement of a bridge under a moving vehicle. First, the theoretical basis of this method is elaborated. The idea is to use the static component of displacement measurements under a moving vehicle, and to use the calculated curvature change to identify damage in bridges. In order to obtain the static component, a technique is proposed for curvature calculation. Second, the proposed method is verified with two examples. In the first example, a finite element model of a single span bridge under a moving vehicle is used to show reliability of the method. Both vehicle-bridge interaction and road surface roughness are considered in the analysis. Parametric study on damage intensity, data acquisition location, vehicle passing path, and damping ratio provides guidance for application in real bridges. In the second example, a field test on a prestressed concrete viaduct is conducted to calibrate its finite element model. Artificial damage, that is, concrete crack and tendon rupture, was created, and the proposed method is used to identify the damage. Analysis results show capability of the method. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and suggestions are given for application of the proposed method on damage detection of real bridges.

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