Safety Assessment of Bridge Structures Using Ambient Vibration

Abstract

In this study, relative load-carrying capacity (RLC) evaluation system in which the change of load-carrying capacity of a bridge structure can be estimated through the variation of the dynamic property, which is induced by the stiffness change due to the deterioration of the bridge, by using ambient traffic-induced vibration was proposed. The system uses the natural excitation technique in conjunction with the eigensystem realization algorithm for identification of modal parameters. Indoor test using a truss-typed model bridge and field measurement were performed to verify the suggested system and it was shown that the RLC estimation system is suitable for the safety assessment of bridge structures in a simple and efficient manner.