Extraction of Bridge Frequencies Inclusive of the Higher Modes by the ESMD Using the Contact-Point Response

Abstract

An effective procedure is proposed for extracting bridge frequencies including the higher modes using the vehicle collected data. This is enabled by the use of the contact-point response, rather than the vehicle response, for processing by the extreme-point symmetric mode decomposition (ESMD). The intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) so decomposed are then processed by the FFT to yield the bridge frequencies. A systematic study is conducted to compare the proposed procedure with existing ones, while assessing the effects of various parameters involved. The proposed procedure was verified in the field for a two-span bridge located at the Chongqing University campus. It was confirmed to perform better than the existing ones in extracting bridge frequencies inclusive of the higher modes. The following are the reasons: (1) the ESMD is more efficient than the EMD in that remarkably less IMFs are generated; (2) the modal aliasing problem is largely alleviated, which helps enhancing the visibility of bridge frequencies in general; and (3) the contact-point response adopted is free of the vehicle frequency, which makes the higher frequencies more outstanding and detectable.