Structural Health Monitoring Using Wireless Technologies: An Ambient Vibration Test on the Adolphe Bridge, Luxembourg City

Abstract

Major threats to bridges primarily consist of the aging of the structural elements, earthquake-induced shaking and standing waves generated by windstorms. The necessity of information on the state of health of structures in real-time, allowing for timely warnings in the case of damaging events, requires structural health monitoring (SHM) systems that allow the risks of these threats to be mitigated. Here we present the results of a short-duration experiment carried out with low-cost wireless instruments for monitoring the vibration characteristics and dynamic properties of a strategic civil infrastructure, the Adolphe Bridge in Luxembourg City. The Adolphe Bridge is a masonry arch construction dating from 1903 and will undergo major renovation works in the upcoming years. Our experiment shows that a network of these wireless sensing units is well suited to monitor the vibration characteristics of such a historical arch bridge and hence represents a low-cost and efficient solution for SHM.

Early Warning for Geological Disasters

“…Finally, the application of SOSEWIN for SHM purposes at a building in L'Aquila ), a suspension bridge in Istanbul , and a historical arch bridge in Luxembourg City (Oth and Picozzi 2012) are presented. Finally, the application of SOSEWIN for SHM purposes at a building in L'Aquila ), a suspension bridge in Istanbul , and a historical arch bridge in Luxembourg City (Oth and Picozzi 2012) are presented.…”

“…For these reasons, Oth and Picozzi (2012), as a first step towards proposing a continuous monitoring approach for the Adolphe Bridge and in order to validate the performance of the SOSEWIN system for structural monitoring on such a historical arch bridge (representing a critical infrastructure for the city of Luxembourg), carried out ambient vibration measurements on 11 May 2010, using a dense network composed of 18 wireless sensing units deployed at regular intervals along the bridge deck ( Fig. The continuous monitoring of such structures would allow for the identification of their fundamental response characteristics and any changes of these over time, the latter providing indicators for potential structural degradation.…”

“…Concerning EEW applications, tests carried out with SOSEWIN in Istanbul, Turkey, where a prototype test-bed consisting of a network of 20 sensors is installed (Oth and Picozzi 2012;), are presented. This work presents a summary of these applications and describes the current state of the development of the SOSEWIN.…”

“…Finally, the application of SOSEWIN for SHM purposes is presented for a number of test cases: a building in L'Aquila following the M = 6.3 2009 event ), a suspension bridge in Istanbul , and a historical arch bridge in Luxembourg City (Oth and Picozzi 2012).…”

Analysis of local influences in structural details of the bridges

“…On the other hand, parameters of the structure's elements, both structural and non-structural, determine its safety and reliability. An important issue is therefore the structural health monitoring (SHM), which is the widely undertaken subject in the national and international literature [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”