Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Sensing and Rating of Vehicle–Railroad Bridge Collision

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Dynamics of Civil Structures, Volume 2

Abstract

Overhead collisions of trucks with low-clearance railway bridges cause more than half of the railway traffic interruptions over bridges in the United States. Railroad owners are required to characterize the damage caused by such events and assess the safety of subsequent train crossings. However, damage characterization is currently visual (subjective) and becomes difficult in remote locations where collisions are not reported and inspections are not performed following the impact. To mitigate these shortcomings, this paper presents a new impact definition and rating strategy for automatically and remotely quantify damage. This research proposes an impact rating strategy based on the information that best describes the consequences of vehicle-railway bridge collisions. A series of representative impacts were simulated using numerical finite element models of a steel railway bridge. Railway owners provided information about the bridge and impact characterization based on railway industry experience. The resulting nonlinear dynamic responses were evaluated with the proposed rating strategy to assess the effect of these impacts. In addition, a neural network methodology was implemented on a simplified numerical model to identify spatial characteristics of the impact damage.

Developed at the Nonlinear Mechanics and Dynamics (NOMAD) Research Institute, which was organized by Sandia National Laboratories and hosted by University of New Mexico.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Otter, D., Joy, R., Jones, M., Maal, L.: Need for bridge monitoring systems to counter railroad bridge service interruptions. Transp. Res. Rec. J. Transp. Res. Board. 2313(1), 134–143 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Joy, R., Jones, M.C., Otter, D., Maal, L.: Characterization of Railroad Bridge Service Interruptions. Railroad Bridges (No. DOT/FRA/ORD-13/05), (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bischoff, R., Meyer, J., Enochsson, O., Feltrin, G., Elfgren, L.: Event-based strain monitoring on a railway bridge with a wireless sensor network. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure, pp. 74–82. Zurich (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Staszewski, W.J., Mahzan, S., Traynor, R.: Health monitoring of aerospace composite structures–Active and passive approach. Compos. Sci. Technol. 69(11), 1678–1685 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Farrar, C.R., Worden, K.: An introduction to structural health monitoring. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 365(1851), 303–315 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Sohn, H.: Effects of environmental and operational variability on structural health monitoring. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lon. A Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 365(1851), 539–560 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Moreu, F., Spencer, B.F.: Framework for Consequence-based Management and Safety of Railroad Bridge Infrastructure Using Wireless Smart Sensors (WSS). Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Yun, H., Nayeri, R., Tasbihgoo, F., Wahbeh, M., Caffrey, J., Wolfe, R., Nigbor, R., Masri, S.F., Abdel-Ghaffar, A., Sheng, L.H.: Monitoring the collision of a Cargo Ship with the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Struct. Control. Health Monit. 15(2), 183–206 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Coverley, P.T., Staszewski, W.J.: Impact damage location in composite structures using optimized sensor triangulation procedure. Smart Mater. Struct. 12(5), 795–803 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Sun, Z., Chang, C.C.: Structural damage assessment based on wavelet packet trans-form. J. Struct. Eng. 128(10), 1354–1361 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Taha, M.M.R., Noureldin, A., Lucero, J.L., Baca, T.J.: Wavelet transform for structural health monitoring: a compendium of uses and features. Struct. Health Monit. 5(3), 267–295 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Song, G., Olmi, C., Gu, H.: An overheight vehicle–bridge collision monitoring system using piezoelectric transducers. Smart Mater. Struct. 16(2), 462–468 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Sharma, H., Hurlebaus, S.: Overheight collision protection measures for bridges. In: Structures Congress 2012, pp. 790–797. ASCE (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Kurt, E.G., Varma, A.H., Hong, S.: FEM Simulation for INDOT Temporary Concrete Anchored Barrier. Joint Transportation Research Program (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Buth, C.E., Williams, W.F., Brackin, M.S., Lord, D., Geedipally, S.R., Abu-Odeh, A.Y.: Analysis of large truck collisions with bridge piers: phase 1. Report of guidelines for designing bridge piers and abutments for vehicle collisions. (No. FHWA/TX-10/9-4973-1), 2010

    Google Scholar 

  16. Consolazio, G.R., McVay, M.C., Cowan, D.R., Davidson, M.T., Getter, D.J.: Development of improved bridge design provisions for barge impact loading. (No. UF Project 00051117), 2008

    Google Scholar 

  17. Luperi, F.J., Pinto, F.: Structural behavior of barges in high-energy collisions against bridge piers. J. Bridg. Eng. 21(2), 04015049 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. ANSYS Inc., ANSYS Autodyn User's Manual. Cecil Township, PA, 2016

    Google Scholar 

  19. ASTM International: ASTM A572-15 Standard Specification for High-Strength Low-Alloy Columbium—Vanadium Structural Steel. (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Jones, N.: Structural Impact. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Wu, X., Ghaboussi, J., Garrett, J.H.: Use of neural networks in detection of structural damage. Br. J. Surg. 81(11), 578–581 (2010)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  22. Ondra, V., Sever, I.A., Schwingshackl, C.W.: A method for detection and characterization of structural non-linearities using the Hilbert transform and neural networks. Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 83(2017), 210–227 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

The authors of this paper thank the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific for their help in the development of this research methodology. The authors also thank Duane Otter from the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. TTCI), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads (AAR) for his constructive feedback and recommendations.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Shreya Vemuganti, Ali Ozdagli & Fernando Moreu

  2. Department of Disaster Prevention Engineering, Institute of Disaster Prevention, Beijing, China

    Bideng Liu

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

    Anela Bajric

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, William Marsh Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Matthew R. W. Brake

  5. Component Science and Mechanics Department, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Kevin Troyer

Authors
  1. Shreya Vemuganti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ali Ozdagli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Bideng Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Anela Bajric
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Fernando Moreu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Matthew R. W. Brake
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Kevin Troyer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shreya Vemuganti .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA

    Juan Caicedo

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

    Shamim Pakzad

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc.

About this paper

Cite this paper

Vemuganti, S. et al. (2017). Sensing and Rating of Vehicle–Railroad Bridge Collision. In: Caicedo, J., Pakzad, S. (eds) Dynamics of Civil Structures, Volume 2 . Conference Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Mechanics Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54777-0_28

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54777-0_28

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54776-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-54777-0

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation