Preventive maintenance is increasingly becoming an essential strategy in the bridge industry owing to its proactive advantage of maintaining the structural sustainability during its entire service ...life. Several in-use bridges lack an appropriate regular maintenance solution, leading to extra cost during the operation stage. This paper proposes a new generation of the bridge maintenance system by using a digital twin model concept for more reliable decision-making. A detailed solution is proposed in this work to enhance the bridge maintenance process using a parallel solution: a maintenance information management system based on a 3D information model in conjunction with a digital inspection system using image processing. Three-dimensional digital models are required to utilise information from the entire lifecycle of a project, including design and construction, operation, and maintenance, by continuously exchanging and updating data from each stakeholder. For the maintenance of prestressed concrete bridges, the twin models are defined and their uses are presented.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) representations of bridges enriched by inspection data will add tremendous value to future Bridge Management Systems (BMSs). This paper presents an approach for ...point cloud-based detection of spalling damage, as well as integrating damage components into a BIM via semantic enrichment of an as-built Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) model. An approach for generating the as-built BIM, geometric reconstruction of detected damage point clusters and semantic-enrichment of the corresponding IFC model is presented. Multiview-classification is used and evaluated for the detection of spalling damage features. The semantic enrichment of as-built IFC models is based on injecting classified and reconstructed damage clusters back into the as-built IFC, thus generating an accurate as-is IFC model compliant to the BMS inspection requirements.
•Description of a method for multiview classification of concrete spalling detection•Description of a method for geometric enrichment of BrIM with damage geometry•Description of a method for semantic enrichment of BrIM with damage semantics•Evaluation of proposed methods in the case study inspection using real bridges
The multi-temporal satellite-based differential interferometry (MTInSAR) is a well-known remote-sensing technique aimed at detecting displacements of persistent scatterers (PSs) on the terrestrial ...surface. Recent studies motivate research effort on developing efficient and automatic procedures for structural monitoring via MTInSAR. This paper proposes a methodology for the portfolio-scale detection of structural deformations of bridges via MTInSAR. The displacement time-series associated with persistent scatterers on the investigated bridges are used to supply a geoprocessing chain leading to the automatic interpretation of bridge-specific deformation scenarios and the definition of monitoring/assessment priority classes. The methodology is applied to two highway networks in Roma and Bari (Italy) by using Sentinel-1 (C-band) and COSMO-SkyMed (X-band) satellite datasets. Although most of the bridges can be assumed stable, a relevant number of bridges affected by ongoing deformation phenomena are associated with high inspection priority. The PSs and the deformation scenarios related to some specific test bridges subjected to subsidence phenomena are analysed and described in detail. Finally, the deformation scenarios detected through the proposed methodology for two collapsed bridges in Italy are illustrated.
•state-of-the-art on MTInSAR for structural monitoring of bridges is presented.•a methodology (SABRI) for portfolio-scale bridge monitoring via MTInSAR is proposed.•MTInSAR detects several bridges subjected to relevant deformation scenario in Rome.•PS displacement time series on selected test bridges are shown and discussed.•the results of MTInSAR applied on two recently collapsed bridges are described.
•A change of variable is defined to convert any distribution of bridges’ deterioration ratings into a normal distribution.•Durability damage thresholds can be established based on an admissible ...probability of failure.•Service and Ultimate Limit State damage thresholds can be applied to inspection-based deterioration curves of bridges.•This research bridges the gap between the traditional analysis of inspection databases and more advance probability-based approaches.•The probability of failure of deteriorated bridges can be estimated based on inspection records, allowing decision-making on necessary actions to be taken.
A probability-based procedure is presented to define damage thresholds of bridges’ deterioration curves, which is applied to a large bridge database of real on-site inspections. The procedure is based on a change of variable to transform any distribution of bridge durability deterioration ratings into a normal distribution. This allows probability-based calculations of damage thresholds associated to certain criteria (e.g. Serviceability or Ultimate Limit State), for immediate application to deterioration prediction curves. This research defines a novel procedure for a probability-based analysis of inspection-based data and, de facto, provides a reliable statistical support system to traditional infrastructure management systems of bridges.
Cities are encountering extensive deficits in infrastructure service while they are experiencing rapid technological advancements and overhauls in transportation systems. Standard bridge evaluation ...methods rely on visual inspections, which are infrequent and subjective, ultimately affecting the structural assessments on which maintenance plans are based. The operational behavior of a bridge must be observed more regularly and over an extended period in order to sufficiently track its condition and avoid unexpected rehabilitation. Mobile sensor networks are conducive to monitoring bridges vibrations routinely, with benefits that have been demonstrated in recent structural health monitoring (SHM) research. Though smartphone accelerometers are imperfect sensors, they can contribute valuable information to SHM, especially when aggregated, e.g., via crowdsourcing. In an application on the Harvard Bridge (Boston, MA), it is shown that acceleration data collected using smartphones in moving vehicles contained consistent and significant indicators of the first three modal frequencies of the bridge. In particular, the results became more precise when informatics from several smartphone datasets were combined. This evidence is the first to support the hypothesis that smartphone data, collected within vehicles passing over a bridge, can be used to detect several modal frequencies of the bridge. The result defines an opportunity for local governments to make partnerships that encourage the collection of low-cost bridge vibration data, which can contribute to more effective management and informed decision-making.
•An information modeling framework for supporting bridge monitoring applications is proposed.•The framework extends the prior work on the OpenBrIM standards to capture the information relevant to ...engineering analysis and sensor network.•Implementation of the framework employs a NoSQL database system for scalability, flexibility and performance.•The framework is demonstrated using bridge information and sensor data collected from the Telegraph Road Bridge located in Monroe, Michigan.
Bridge management involves a variety of information from different data sources, including geometric model, analysis model, bridge management system (BMS) and structural health monitoring (SHM) system. Current practice of bridge management typically handles these diverse types of data using isolated systems and operates with limited use of the data. Sharing and integration of such information would facilitate meaningful use of the information and improve bridge management, as well as enhance bridge operation and maintenance and public safety. In many industries, information models and interoperability standards have been developed and employed to facilitate information sharing and collaboration. Given the success of building information modeling (BIM) in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry, efforts have been initiated to develop frameworks and standards for bridge information modeling (BrIM). Current developments of BrIM focus primarily on the physical descriptions of bridge structures, such as geometry and material properties. This paper presents an information modeling framework for supporting bridge monitoring applications. The framework augments and extends the prior work on the OpenBrIM standards to further capture the information relevant to engineering analysis and sensor network. Implementation of the framework employs an open-source NoSQL database system for scalability, flexibility and performance. The framework is demonstrated using bridge information and sensor data collected from the Telegraph Road Bridge located in Monroe, Michigan. The results show that the bridge information modeling framework can potentially facilitate the integration of information involved in bridge monitoring applications, and effectively support and provide services to retrieve and utilize the information.
Transportation infrastructure in Texas, U.S., particularly its extensive bridge network, plays a vital role in supporting economic growth and ensuring safe and efficient mobility. With over 57,000 ...bridges, including more than 22,000 culverts, Texas faces the challenge of maintaining its infrastructure while dealing with limited funding resources. This paper presents the findings of a study conducted for the Texas Department of Transportation that focused on assessing the costs associated with bridge consumption by oversize and overweight (OS/OW) vehicles. The study aimed to calculate bridge consumption costs per mile for different OS/OW categories, considering factors such as axle load, spacing, bridge design life, and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). These consumption costs were calculated by analyzing traffic data and bridge inventory ratings. The results showed that, although OS/OW vehicles are responsible for the majority of the bridge consumption costs per mile, their lower VMT, relative to regular commercial vehicles, mitigates their influence on total bridge consumption costs to less than 15% of the total. The findings of this study can contribute to the ongoing efforts of transportation engineers and policymakers in addressing funding deficits and developing strategies to sustain the state’s bridge infrastructure.
The maintenance and repair of bridges (and other large scale infrastructure projects) is a major area which could benefit from Structural Health Monitoring technology. Inspections on bridges can take ...a long time and require many people, and are therefore conducted infrequently. This low frequency of inspection leaves the chance that damage and dangerous critical failures can occur during the long timeframes between inspections. It might even be the case that an inspection fails to identify sub-surface damage. Therefore some form of continuous monitoring is desirable, especially if such systems can reliably detect sub-surface damage. However, the application of SHM to bridges is made challenging by the cost and practicability of obtaining damage-state data for bridges. Over the lifetime of a single bridge, it is hoped that a critical failure will never occur, and only a small number of the possible damage states will occur. It is also unpractical to intentionally damage structures to obtain damage-state data. Population-based structural health monitoring seeks to overcome the obstacle of the limited data available for a single structure, by allowing data to be shared between similar structures. Bridges represent an interesting challenge for PBSHM as each bridge is unique. As such, an assessment of how similar bridges are to each other is required. To provide this assessment, one must develop an abstract representation for each bridge, and using this to perform a comparison. This paper describes the use of a general approach for assessing the similarity of structures, applied to several bridge examples which are representative of common types of bridges, to show that it can be applied in this field.
The question of maintenance and monitoring of bridges gained attention during the last decade, especially in Italy, after some serious collapses. The first emergency phase was the census and the ...visual evaluation of the state of maintenance and preservation of existing heritage to highlight the critical conditions for security. For this reason, in 2020 the Italian Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure enacts Guidelines, based on a multilevel approach, which allows to save time and resources by deepening the analysis only on the bridges in the worst state of conservation. After two years of inspections, a lot of data had been collected. The data concerns both the geometrical/typological characteristics and the defectiveness of bridges. In the present work, the authors discuss the data of a sample of inspected bridges belonging to some Regions of the Italian infrastructural system trying to analyse them from a statistical point of view. The objective is to standardize an analysis methodology and apply it to a larger number of samples to obtain useful and significant information to refine the inspection procedure and, eventually, to educate algorithms for the a priori provision of the defectiveness level, suggesting a possible prioritization of the bridges to be inspected.
