Evaluation of Static Displacement Based on Ambient Vibration for Bridge Safety Management

Abstract

The evaluation of bridge safety is closely related to structural stiffness, with dynamic characteristics and displacement being key indicators. Displacement is a significant factor as it is a physical phenomenon that bridge users can directly perceive. However, accurately measuring displacement generally necessitates the installation of displacement meters within the bridge substructure and conducting load tests that require traffic closure, which can be cumbersome. This paper proposes a novel method that uses wireless accelerometers to measure ambient vibration data from bridges, extracts mode shapes and natural frequencies through the time domain decomposition (TDD) technique, and estimates static displacement under specific loads using the flexibility matrix. A field test on a 442.0 m cable-stayed bridge was conducted to verify the proposed method. The estimated displacement was compared with the actual displacement measured by a laser displacement sensor, resulting in an error rate of 3.58%. Additionally, an analysis of the accuracy of displacement estimation based on the number of measurement points indicated that securing at least seven measurement points keeps the error rate within 5%. This study could be effective for evaluating the safety of bridges in environments where load testing is difficult or for bridges that require periodic dynamic characteristics and displacement analysis due to repetitive vibrations, and it is expected to be applicable to various types of bridge structures.

Keywords

• aged bridge
• displacement
• modal analysis
• ambient vibration
• wireless accelerometer