A multi-way data analysis approach for structural health monitoring of a cable-stayed bridge

Abstract

A large-scale cable-stayed bridge in the state of New South Wales, Australia, has been extensively instrumented with an array of accelerometer, strain gauge, and environmental sensors. The real-time continuous response of the bridge has been collected since July 2016. This study aims at condition assessment of this bridge by investigating three aspects of structural health monitoring including damage detection, damage localization, and damage severity assessment. A novel data analysis algorithm based on incremental multi-way data analysis is proposed to analyze the dynamic response of the bridge. This method applies incremental tensor analysis for data fusion and feature extraction, and further uses one-class support vector machine on this feature to detect anomalies. A total of 15 different damage scenarios were investigated; damage was physically simulated by locating stationary vehicles with different masses at various locations along the span of the bridge to change the condition of the bridge. The effect of damage on the fundamental frequency of the bridge was investigated and a maximum change of 4.4% between the intact and damage states was observed which corresponds to a small severity damage. Our extensive investigations illustrate that the proposed technique can provide reliable characterization of damage in this cable-stayed bridge in terms of detection, localization and assessment. The contribution of the work is threefold; first, an extensive structural health monitoring system was deployed on a cable-stayed bridge in operation; second, an incremental tensor analysis was proposed to analyze time series responses from multiple sensors for online damage identification; and finally, the robustness of the proposed method was validated using extensive field test data by considering various damage scenarios in the presence of environmental variabilities.

Health Monitoring-Based Assessment of Reinforcement with Prestressed Steel Strand for Cable-Stayed Bridge

“…At the same time, due to the lack of design theory or construction technology, many cable-stayed bridges suffer from a series of damages, which seriously affect their carrying capacity and performance. It has caused a serious impact on traffic safety [9][10][11][12].…”

Damage Identification in Hangers of Through-Arch Bridges Using Static Deflection Difference at the Anchorage Point

“…In addition, the cable is subjected to the cyclic action of service and environmental loads and is influenced by the vortex-induced vibration and wind-rain-induced vibration. Hence, it is easy to damage and even cause the bridge to collapse in severe cases [5][6][7]. Therefore, the identification of cable damage is of great significance to ensure the safe operation of this kind of bridge [7].…”

“…Many researchers have studied the damage identification of the hanger based on the curvature mode [10][11][12]. However, the modal parameters of the structure are affected mainly by operational and environmental conditions, such as traffic, wind, and temperature [5]. Sometimes the changes caused by the damage may be completely masked by the regular changes caused by the environment, which may lead to misjudgment [10,13].…”

“…When the external load is constant, the reduced force will be shared by the tie-beam and other hangers, increasing the cable force of the adjacent hanger, thus resulting in the redistribution of the cable force. Therefore, the cable damage can be evaluated by measuring the change of cable force or cable stress [5,[20][21][22]. A structure's frequency is usually used to measure the cable force in engineering [23], but this method is not accurate in measuring the force of a short cable.…”

Special Issue: Real World Application of SHM in Australia

“…After rigorous pre-screening, peer review and revision processes, fourteen papers were accepted for inclusion in the Special Issue. The contributions include deterioration assessment of the instrumented P block building at QUT using hybrid model updating and long-term vibration monitoring data 4 , reliability-based load-carrying capacity assessment of bridges using SHM and non-linear analysis 5 , and innovative vibration based damage identification methods with applications to cable-stayed, steel-truss or timber bridges 6–9 as well as to frame, utility-pole or building structures 10–12 . The Special Issue also includes new research on non-destructive evaluation of (i) incipient pitting corrosion in reinforced concrete structures 13 , (ii) gaps between carbon fibre reinforced polymer composite and concrete surfaces 14 , (iii) fatigue cracks in pipes 15 , (iv) bolted joints 16 , and (v) in-situ stress 17 .…”