A bridge-vehicle interaction based experimental investigation of damage evolution

Pakrashi, Vikram; O'Connor, Alan J.; Basu, Biswajit

A bridge-vehicle interaction based experimental investigation of damage evolution

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Files

VP_bridge-vehicleAV2010.pdf(631.55 KB)

Accepted Version

Date

2010-07

Authors

Pakrashi, Vikram

O'Connor, Alan J.

Basu, Biswajit

Publisher

Sage Publications

Published Version

10.1177/1475921709352147

Abstract

This article presents an experimental monitoring of the evolution of a crack in a beam using beam-vehicle interaction response signals for identification of progressively increasing crack-depth ratios. The beam is traversed by a two-axle model vehicle providing excitation in the time domain for the various extents of damage. The response of the beam in the time domain during the period of forced vibration is measured using strain gages. A consistent evolution of damage has been demonstrated in terms of the maxima values of the measured responses. The corresponding distortions of wavelet coefficients of the measured strain data due to the presence of various levels of damage have been identified. The evolution of the phase space and the wavelet transformed phase spaces have been evaluated with damage evolution. The wavelet transformed phase spaces for the undamaged and the damaged cases are observed to be distinctly different at high scales. The importance of denoising of the acquired data and the importance of vehicle configuration has been illustrated. This study presents a basis for a general model free damage assessment and structural health monitoring framework. The study presented is particularly useful in the context of continuous online bridge health monitoring, since the data necessary for analysis can be obtained from the operating condition of the bridge and the structure does not need be closed down.

Keywords

Wavelet coefficient maps , Distorted ridges and skeletons , Wavelet transformed phase space , Damage evolution , Bridge-vehicle interaction

Citation

Pakrashi, V., O'Connor A.J., Basu B., 2010. A bridge-vehicle interaction based experimental investigation of damage evolution. Structural Health Monitoring, 9 (4):285-296.