Drive-By Bridge Damage Identification Through Virtual Simulations

Abstract

With massive infrastructures built in US, timely condition assessment of these infrastructures becomes critical to daily traffic and economics. Due to high cost, long time consumption of direct condition assessment methods, such as closing traffic for sensor installation and monitoring, indirect bridge monitoring has become a promising method. However, the technology is in its initial stage and needs substantial refinement. In this research, virtual simulation approaches, both in 2D and 3D, are used to model the bridge and vehicle interaction through ABAQUS. Artificial Damages were embedded to the model according to different locations and different levels of intensities. With the modelled outcomes, the hypothesis of identifying damages through the responses of the vehicle will be tested. From the simulated vehicle responses, bridge frequencies and damage locations and sizes could be identified accurately through short time flourier transformation and mode shape difference.