Modeling and Monitoring of the Dynamic Response of Railroad Bridges using Wireless Smart Sensors

Kim, Robin E.; Spencer, Billie F., Jr.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/87942 Copy

Description

Title

Modeling and Monitoring of the Dynamic Response of Railroad Bridges using Wireless Smart Sensors

Author(s)

• Kim, Robin E.
• Spencer, Billie F., Jr.

Issue Date

2015-09

Keyword(s)

• Structural health monitoring
• Wireless smart sensors
• Railroad bridge
• Full-scale monitoring system
• Hybrid vehicle-bridge model
• System identification
• Time synchronization
• Wireless communication reliability assessment

Abstract

Railroad bridges form an integral part of railway infrastructure in the USA, carrying approximately 40 % of the ton-miles of freight. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) forecasts current rail tonnage to increase up to 88 % by 2035. Within the railway network, a bridge occurs every 1.4 miles of track, on average, making them critical elements. In an effort to accommodate safely the need for increased load carrying capacity, the Federal Railroad Association (FRA) announced a regulation in 2010 that the bridge owners must conduct and report annual inspection of all the bridges. The objective of this research is to develop appropriate modeling and monitoring techniques for railroad bridges toward understanding the dynamic responses under a moving train. To achieve the research objective, the following issues are considered specifically. For modeling, a simple, yet effective, model is developed to capture salient features of the bridge responses under a moving train. A new hybrid model is then proposed, which is a flexible and efficient tool for estimating bridge responses for arbitrary train configurations and speeds. For monitoring, measured field data is used to validate the performance of the numerical model. Further, interpretation of the proposed models showed that those models are efficient tools for predicting response of the bridge, such as fatigue and resonance. Finally, fundamental software, hardware, and algorithm components are developed for providing synchronized sensing for geographically distributed networks, as can be found in railroad bridges. The results of this research successfully demonstrate the potentials of using wirelessly measured data to perform model development and calibration that will lead to better understanding the dynamic responses of railroad bridges and to provide an effective tool for prediction of bridge response for arbitrary train configurations and speeds.

Publisher

Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Series/Report Name or Number

Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory Report Series 044

ISSN

1940-9826

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/87942

Sponsor(s)/Grant Number(s)

• National Science Foundation Grant No. CMS-0600433
• National Science Foundation Grant No. CMMI-0928886
• National Science Foundation Grant No. OISE-1107526
• National Science Foundation Grant No. CMMI- 0724172 (NEESR-SD)
• Federal Railroad Administration BAA 2010-1 project

Copyright and License Information

Copyright held by the authors. All rights reserved.

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