The effect of traffic modeling on damage detection procedure of bridges

Abstract

One of the most important issues in the damage detection procedure of the real bridges is to detect damage at its early stages during the presence of heavy traffic on bridges. The identified damage extent is of high importance in bridge management. The bridge may put out of service if it becomes necessary. Herein, the effect of traffic modeling on damage detection of bridges is studied through numerical simulation. A simply supported beam has been considered; and, the traffic is modeled as a Poisson arrival process. The mass of traffic is considered as ratios of total mass of the bridge ranging from 0.05 to 0.20. The vibrations of beam have been simulated considering moving mass effect of the vehicles passing the bridge. Using only vertical accelerations responses, modal features of the structure have been extracted by the frequency domain decomposition (FDD) method. Modal strain energy method with incomplete mode shapes have been employed to identify the extent of damage for different damage and traffic scenarios. Damage(s) have been introduced to the beam elements as stiffness reduction in three single and multiple scenarios with different extents of damage ranging from 0.10 to 0.30. According to the results, it is visible that heavy traffic did not have any outstanding effect on mode shapes and the damage(s) at mid-span of the modeled beam are more likely to be indicated and quantified.