Highway IDEA Program: Real-Time Remote Evaluation of Post-Event Residual Capacity of Highway Bridges

摘要

The nations sophisticated highway system is supported by hundreds of thousands of bridge and viaducts. Lack of rapid information about post-event structural integrity of these structures can cause safety hazards to the traveling public, halt mobility of the transportation network, and disrupt emergency response. The current practice relies on visual inspection for damage detection, which is time consuming, insufficient, subjective, and requires physical presence of inspection crew on the structure that is potentially hazardous after major natural or man-made events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorist attacks. The practice lacks the urgently needed elements for developing a rapid decision-making process that could be accomplished within minutes rather than days or months.