Indirect Bridge Monitoring from Instrumented Vehicles

Abstract

This paper investigates the sensitivity of a rotation-based damage estimation method applied to simply supported beams under a quasi-static moving load. The method estimates three damage parameters, damage start location (L1), end location (L2), and severity (β), using rotation observed at the load location. In this study, results from finite element model (FEM) simulations of three damage scenarios characterize how these damage parameters affect the rotation response. For each case, two parameters are fixed to their best estimated values while the third is varied across its top 100 values. The resulting sensitivity, i.e. change in rotation with respect to each parameter, illustrates rotation changes with respect to the moving load location and parameter variation. This establishes the sensitivity of the method and motivates the use of rotation-based damage detection methodologies.