Structural health monitoring for fatigue life prediction of orthotropic bridge decks
conference paper
Infrastructure asset owners are more and more confronted with structures reaching the end of their structural life. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems should provide up-to-date information about the actual condition, as well predict the structural life and required maintenance of the assets for more cost effective and reliable operation in future. Fatigue is regarded as a governing degradation mechanism in bridge decks. This paper presents the results of fatigue tests carried out on a representative test structure in the lab environment. The work is part of an ongoing research project to demonstrate the benefits of adaptive and scalable network technologies for SHM of orthotropic bridge decks. Fatigue cracks initiated and propagated in the root of the welded connections at the intersection of deck plate and open stiffeners at the crossbeam. The modeled crack growth adequately matched the measured crack growth. Acoustic emission (AE) sensors could identify crack activity at hot spot locations in an early stage of crack growth. This is of main importance for monitoring fatigue cracks at hot spot locations at which strain gauges cannot be effectively applied, such as at the weld root of deck plate cracks.
TNO Identifier
485506
Source title
3rd Orthotropic Bridge Conference Proceedings, 26-28 June 2013, Sacramento, CA, USA
Collation
14 p.
Pages
432-445
Files
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