Structural health monitoring of Delaware's Indian River InletBridge

摘要

Construction of Delaware's new Indian River Inlet Bridge is being planned. Aninnovative 305 m single-rib concrete arch bridge was designed by the Figg Engineering Group(Pate, 2004). In an effort to allow the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) to bettermaintain and operate the bridge, the Center for Innovative Bridge Engineering (CIBrE) at theUniversity of Delaware is planning to install a permanent long-term structural health monitoringsystem on the bridge. Working closely with DelDOT and Figg from the initiation of the project,the research team has designed a comprehensive monitoring system for the bridge. The systemwill enable monitoring of critical behaviors during construction and continuous monitoring duringnormal operation. The health monitoring system will be used to verify the innovative design,to monitor the structure during construction, and to track the long-term performance of thebridge. The data from the system will become part of the maintenance and inspection recordsfor the bridge, which will enable DelDOT to better maintain and operate the bridge throughoutits life. The health monitoring system includes numerous embedded and surface mounted sensorsdistributed throughout the bridge, a networked data acquisition system, power and communicationsconduits, and a central processing system. Critical to the success of the design was theclose coordination maintained with the design team, design review team, and owner throughoutthe entire design process. This paper presents the plan for the entire program and provide astatus report on the monitoring effort.