Civil Infrastructure Load Models for Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

Load models play an important role in structural health monitoring (SHM). On the one hand, loads and load models are needed for system identification, which is the first step in obtaining a measure of structural health. Different possible loading procedures and their models are discussed in relation to the planned identification outcomes. On the other hand, the characteristics of realistic loads acting on a structure must be known to allow a precise lifetime prediction. In this article, only traffic and wind load models are discussed. Unexpected loads such as earthquakes, blasts, etc., cannot be predicted very accurately; thus, a lifetime assessment is not feasible. A similar situation exists with wind‐induced vibrations, e.g., due to vortex shedding, galloping, flutter, etc. These vibrations are usually always dangerous for a structure and may cause fatigue or other types of damage; thus, wind‐induced vibrations must be prevented rather than predicted.

Remote Assessment of the Serviceability of Infrastructural Assets

“…With the unreliability of such conventional lifetime assessment methods [1,2], SHM has become a very important tool for assessing the lifetime of a structure. To curtail the stated shortcomings in the inspection and maintenance process, it became necessary to expand the original scope of SHM frameworks.…”

“…Integrating a variety of disciplines including material science, non-destructive evaluation, fracture and fatigue mechanics, structural dynamics and structural design, SHM frameworks can be designed to collect information on deflections and strains, system behavior, thresholds of systems and members, input values for lifetime assessment, and maintenance planning [1]. To this end, SHM frameworks originally designed for capturing and assessing the initiation and propagation of damage, have been expanded to collect other information related to the performance of the structure [1,4]. To prevent damage to structures, the monitoring or data acquisition stage of SHM is carried out principally using non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques.…”

Multi-Phased Array for Damage Localisation

“…Many techniques have been developed to detect and localise damage in plates using elastic waves propagation [1][2][3]. This issue is very important because plates and plate-like elements are extensively used as structural parts of an aircraft.…”