Structural health monitoring methodology for simply supported bridges: numerical implementation

Structural health monitoring of civil structures is currently receiving great amount of attention by researchers due to the economic impact and life-safety implications of early damage detection. Current visual inspection techniques, which aim to detect local damage, can be used in conjunction with a structural health monitoring system to inspect more localized regions. This paper presents a structural health monitoring methodology for simply supported bridges, which is divided into four steps; the first step deals with the optimum location of sensors using the concept of Fisher information matrix, the second and third steps use ambient excitation sources for system identification and the final step employs the Bayesian probabilistic approach to detect structural damage sites. A finite element model of a scaled bridge is used to carry out this numerical implementation. The results show that the proposed methodology can be implemented in the railway system of Medellín. The repetitive pattern of simply supported bridges can greatly facilitate the implementation of damage monitoring systems for the whole railway system.