Monitoring and Defect Detection of an All-Composite Road Bridge

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an ongoing investigation into the use of broadband vibration data to monitor the structural integrity and health of an all-composite road bridge. Bridge 1-351 on Business Route 896 in Glasgow, Delaware, was replaced with one of the first state-owned all-composite bridges in the nation in the fall of 1998. The bridge consists of two E-Glass/vinyl ester sandwich core sections (13-ft × 32 ft) joined by a longitudinal joint in the traffic direction. Each sandwich core section consists of a 28-inch deep core and 0.4-0.7-inch thick facesheets. Vibration data were obtained from the upper and lower surfaces of the bridge using a mesh of 1050 test points. From the modal information and the visualization of the data, several aspects of the structural behavior of the bridge were obtained. These characteristics include the interactions between the bridge and abutments; the effectiveness of the longitudinal joint to couple the deck sections; the effectiveness of the core to couple the face sheets; and the structural integrity and dynamic consistency of the entire structure. Mode shapes and natural frequencies were determined and are correlated with theoretical calculations and vibration analyses conducted for this bridge. A novel algorithm using the vibration data is being developed that enables local perturbations sensitive to the state of the material (e.g. manufacturing defects, material degradation or service damage) to be detected and spatially located in the bridge. This technique has been successfully validated for locating damage in 1-D beam structures and is being extended to the 3-D sandwich configuration of the bridge. By coupling this damage detection algorithm with the more conventional modal technique, the quality assurance/quality control and health monitoring of large composite bridge can be obtained.