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Bridge Structural Health Monitoring and Diagnostics in Vermont
March 29, 2012
by Jody Ciano
Using innovation to work smarter, more effectively and more economically, VTrans initiated a collaborative research project with The University of Vermont's Structural Monitoring and Diagnostics Lab to monitor the structural performance of bridges 58 N&S along I-89 in the town of Richmond. This effort seeks to determine the actual live load characteristics of the bridge structures. Dr. Eric Hernandez, Assistant Professor, College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences; graduate student, Geoff May; and members from VTrans staff strategically installed 28 strain sensors and 10 accelerometers along the stringers that support the two bridge decks in order to monitor the structures' dynamic response to vehicular traffic. Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, a local engineering firm, generated the instrumentation plan under Dr. Hernandez's guidance. The data collected with the sensors will be processed and analyzed using recently developed structural health monitoring (SHM) algorithms by Prof. Hernandez.
Read MoreLast modified May 01 2012 08:58 AM