Long-Term In-Service Monitoring and Performance Assessment of the Main Cables of Long-Span Suspension Bridges

Abstract

Despite the recent developments in structural health monitoring, there remain great challenges for accurately, conveniently, and economically assessing the in-service performance of the main cables for long-span suspension bridges. A long-term structural health monitoring technique is developed to measure the tension force with a conventional sensing technology and further provide the in-service performance assessment strategy of the main cable. The monitoring system adopts conventional vibrating strings transducers to monitor the tension forces of separate cable strands of the main cable in the anchor span. The performance evaluation of the main cable is conducted based on the collected health monitoring data: (1) the measured strand forces are used to derive the overall tension force of a main cable, which is further translated into load bearing capacity assessment using the concept of safety factor; and (2) the proposed technique can also evaluate the uniformity of tension forces from different cable strands. The assessment of uniformity of strand forces of a main cable offers critical information in terms of potential risks of partial damage and performance deterioration of the main cable. The results suggest the proposed low-cost monitoring system is an option to provide approximate estimation of tension forces of main cables for suspension bridges. With the long-term monitoring data, the proposed monitoring-based evaluation methods can further provide critical information to assess the safety and serviceability performance of main cables.

Image‐based back analysis for tension estimation of suspension bridge hanger cables

“…As such, they are important in terms of the scale. As cables support much of the load in cable‐supported bridges, the management of the cable tension is more important than anything else in terms of the safety and maintenance at the beginning of a bridge's construction …”

Effect of Tensile Force on Magnetostrictive Sensors for Generating and Receiving Longitudinal Mode Guided Waves in Steel Wires

“…More seriously, the broken cables would cause the collapse accident of the bridges, such as Kongquehe Bridge in China and Mahakam II Bridge in Indonesia. Recently, the longitudinal mode guided wave technology based on the magnetostrictive effect was employed to inspect the bridge cables which could achieve long-range detection from one point [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Guided wave testing using the magnetostrictive sensors includes the wave excitation and reception, based on magnetostrictive effect and its invert effect.…”

Temperature Compensation of Elasto-Magneto-Electric (EME) Sensors in Cable Force Monitoring Using BP Neural Network

“…Monitoring of cable stress/force of in-service structures is challenging but crucial to the evaluation of structural safety [ 1 , 2 ]. The elasto-magnetic (EM) effect-based sensors have been receiving increasing attention, with superiorities of noncontact measurement, corrosion resistance, actual-stress measurement, low cost, and long service-life [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ].…”