A Dispersion-Based Methodology for the in Situ Assessment of Bending Stiffness in Bridge Cables

Characterisation and assessment of damage in cable structures

“…Focusing on the propagation of transverse waves and the relation between the velocity of propagation and the characteristics of the propagating means, such as force, bending stiffness and shear coefficients, a new approach to detect damage is being developed, which takes advantage of modern instrumentation and of the capacity to sample at very high frequencies [47,48].…”

“…The technique can be illustrated with the scheme of Fig. 20 and was first applied to a cable from a small cable-stayed bridge of 9.1 m, formed from a solid bar with a diameter of 28.6 mm made of stainless steel [47].…”

“…Using an Euler-Bernoulli approach, a group velocity c where ω represents the circular frequency. Using the Timoshenko model, a more complex expression for the velocity of propagation is obtained [47] which asymptote is depending on the taut string velocity of propagation c t , on the distortion modulus G, the cross-sectional area A, the shear coefficient of the cross section K, and μ.…”

“…The studies developed in [47] and the application developed in [48] evidence that the fitted dispersive relations have different sensitivities to the various identified parameters. The installed force, for example, is only sensitive in the low-frequency range, where the frequency resolution is relatively poor due to the short duration of the records associated with an impact excitation.…”