One-year dynamic monitoring of a bridge: Modal parameters tracking under the influence of environmental effects

Abstract

: In order to evaluate the usefulness of approaches based on modal parameters tracking for Structural Health Monitoring of bridges, on September of 2007 a dynamic monitoring system with 12 accelerometers was installed on a concrete arch bridge that spans 280m over the Douro River at the city of Porto, in Portugal. This paper characterizes the bridge and its modal parameters (identified with an ambient vibration test), describes the monitoring hardware and the implemented software, reports the results obtained with the algorithms developed for the modal parameters automatic identification and characterizes the influence of the environmental temperature and traffic intensity on the identified modal parameters.