Bridge damage identification from measured natural frequencies

Author(s): I. Mekjavić
Paper category: Workshop
Book title: RILEM International workshop on performance-based specification and control of concrete durability
Editor(s): D. Bjegović, H. Beushausen, M. Serdar
ISBN: 978-2-35158-135-3
e-ISBN: 978-2-35158-136-0
Pages: 93 - 100
Total Pages: 8
Language: English

Abstract: 
This paper presents an approach for the structural damage identification using only the changes of measured natural frequencies. The structural damage is characterized by a local decrease of stiffness and assumed to be associated with a reduction of a contribution to the element stiffness matrix, equivalent to a scalar reduction of the material modulus.
A computational procedure for the direct iteration technique based on the non-linear perturbation theory is proposed to identify structural damage. The measured natural frequencies are employed to evaluate the finite element model, and then for damage identification for the structure.
The presented damage identification technique is applied to six highway overpass bridges of different ages in Croatia to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. It is found that the proposed approach is quite sensitive to the quality of measured natural frequencies for structural damage identification due to the ill-conditioned system of governing equations. By using measured natural frequency data, reduction in the stiffness of up to 50% at multiple sites is detected.

Online publication: 2013
Publication Type: full_text
Public price (Euros): 0.00