A full-scale loading test of a highway bridge in Finland

The Baltic Journal of Road and Bridge Engineering, 2013

2013

The subject of the paper is a loading tes t conducted on the bridge located on the provincial road nr 480 (km 40+578), over Pilsia riv e in Szczercowska Wie ś, Poland. The aim of the test was to examine the stiffness of the bri dge’s structure consisting of five post-tensioned girders of 1.00m height and 18.40m total length. Th e test has been carried out with use of a truck with variable amount of sand ballast, intro ducing the load on the bridge. Results of the measurements of concrete strains and displacements of the girders during the test allowed designing a structural health monitoring system to be installed on the bridge for the evaluation of the effects of structural strengthening with pre st ssed CFRP laminates.

2019

This paper presents the results obtained by the loading test performed on 12 new bridges along the “Demir Kapija-Smokvica” motorway section on Pan-European Corridor X. Four (2x2) of them are simply supported post tensioned beams bridges and the other eight (4x2) are balanced cantilever. Static loading test was performed with a certain number of identical trucks applied in pre-defined positions. For the dynamic loading test, one truck, moving with different velocities, was used. The purpose of the loading test was to assess the quality of the newly built bridges by comparing the real behavior of the structures with the theoretical assumptions in the structural design. Deflections as well as strains were measured at several measurement points of specific cross sections of the decks. The measurement was performed by deflect meters, however for the sections over the rivers a proper survey equipment was used. Strains were measured with strain gauges for concrete and data acquisition unit...

A set of dynamic field tests were conducted on the Chulitna River Bridge recently. The Chulitna River Bridge, built in 1970, is located at Historic Mile Post 133 on the Parks Highway between Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska. Ambient free-decay response approach is used to estimate the dynamic properties of the bridge. Stationary and dynamic tests on the acceleration responses of the bridge recorded at different locations and in different directions during traveling vehicle passing the bridge. The natural frequencies are identified are characterized by the FFT methods. Results show that there are several components at 1.50, 2.20, 2.85, 3.23, 4.58 Hz are characterized, 2.85, 3.23, 4.58 Hz are bridge vertical mode; 1.50, 2.20 Hz are the longitudinal mode of bridge. Compared with the finite element model results, the measured results matched very well. The modal parameters identified from the bridge responses recorded at different locations are compared with each other to check their consistency, and are compared with FEM analytical results. The results demonstrated that (1) the modal parameters consistent with the FEM results; (2) The modal frequencies results are very sensitive to measurement locations, as such, multiple measurement points are necessary, and the optimization of measurement location is critical to conduct the test efficiently; (3). The identified modal properties of the Chulitna River Bridge could be used as benchmark in on-going health monitoring studies of this bridge.

JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT, 2015

Several technical and scientific publications have been made available focussing on Bridge Weight-in-Motion (BWIM) concerning railway bridges. On the contrary, BWIM analysis on road bridges are more scarce and therefore, this work intends to provide a contribution by presenting the BWIM analysis performed on two major road bridges in Portugal – Lezíria Bridge and Pinhão Bridge. These bridges are equipped with electric and optical strain gauges, acquisi­tion systems with features that allow high sampling rates. Based on the collected data and focussing on the bridges’ life­time, a probabilistic approach to quantify extreme traffic loads was implemented using extreme distribution functions. The bridges’ behaviour to these extreme traffic loads is numerically evaluated and a comparison with the alarm levels established by the bridge designers is performed. Although the bridge’s safety is not compromised, it was concluded that the representativeness of the observation period is a critic...

Transportation Research Record, 1995

Proceedings of the Joint COST TU1402 - COST TU1406 - IABSE WC1 Workshop: The Value of Structural Health Monitoring for the reliable Bridge Management, 2017

Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 2011

Civil engineering infrastructures journal, 2015

In this paper, full scale load test of a horizontally curved steel box-girder bridge is carried out in order to detect structural defects, which reportedly result in unwanted vibrations in nearby buildings. The bridge is tested under the passage of six heavy vehicles at different speeds, so as to determine its static and dynamic responses. A total number of one hundred and two (102) sensors are used to measure the displacements, strains, and accelerations of different points of the bridge. It is observed that the bridge vibrates at a fundamental frequency of 2.6 Hz intensively and the first mode of vibration is torsional instead of flexural. The dominant frequency of vibration of the nearby buildings is computed to be approximately 2.5Hz using rational formulas. Thus, nearness of the fundamental frequency of the bridge to those of the adjacent buildings may be causing resonance phenomenon. However, in static load tests, low ranges of strain and displacement illustrated adequate stru...

Engineering Mechanics, 2018