Abstract
This paper aims to explore fundamental characteristics of bridge vibration spectra to potentially evaluate soil-abutment interactions and changes in abutment earth pressures. To this aim, the bridge response to the excitation of an approaching vehicle on road is utilized to evaluate the transmissibility of the road-soil-abutment-bridge (r-s-a-b) path. By comparing the FFT spectrums of bridge acceleration responses before and upon a vehicle traversing over an abutment, we found that the response spectrum consists of specific frequency of vehicle excitation, even though the bridge response before vehicle traversed over the abutment has a much smaller magnitude. This suggests that the bridge response before the vehicle traversed over the abutment is sensitive enough to be used to characterize the dynamic features of r-s-a-b transmissibility. Hilbert–Huang Transform method is used to extract the non-stationary information of the moving vehicle excitation from the bridge responses to characterize the r-s-a-b transmissibility. It is found that specific signature associated with the specific frequency of vehicle excitation can be extracted from the Hilbert spectrum of empirical modal decomposition signals, and this signature could be readily quantified as a monitoring index which exhibits time-varying property.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Hsieh KH, Halling MW, Barr PJ (2006) Overview of vibrational structural health monitoring with representative case studies. ASCE J Bridge Eng 11(12):707
Modares M, Waksmanski N (2013) Overview of structural health monitoring for steel bridges. ASCE Pract Period Struct Des Constr 18(3):187–191
Whelana MJ, Gangonea MV, Janoyan KD, Jha R (2009) Real-time wireless vibration monitoring for operational modal analysis of an integral abutment highway bridge. Eng Struct 31:2224–2235
Pugasap K, Kim W, Laman JA (2009) Long-term response prediction of integral abutment bridges. ASCE J Bridge Eng 3/4:129
Thomson TA Jr, Lutenegger AJ (1998) Passive earth pressure tests on an integral bridge abutment. In: Proceedings 4th international conference on case histories in geotechnical engineering, St. Louis, Missouri, March 9–12
Khodair YA (2009) Lateral earth pressure behind an integral abutment. Struct Infrastruct Eng 5(2):123–136
Bloodworth A, Xu M, Banks J, Clayton C (2012) Predicting the earth pressure on integral bridge abutments. J Bridge Eng 17(2):371–381
Wilson P, Elgamal A (2008) Full scale bridge abutment passive earth pressure tests and calibrated models. 14th world conference on earthquake engineering, October 12–17, 2008, Beijing, China
Huntley SA, Valsangkar AJ (2013) Field monitoring of earth pressures on integral bridge abutments. Can Geotech J. doi:10.1139/cgj-2012-0440
Kim WS, Laman JA (2010) Numerical analysis method for long-term behavior of integral abutment bridges. Eng Struct 32:2247–2257
Shamsabadi A, Nordal S (2006) Modeling passive earth pressures on bridge abutments for nonlinear Seismic Soil-Structure interaction using Plaxis Bulletin, Issue 20
Whelan MJ, Gangone MV, Janoyan KD, Jha R (2009) Real-time wireless vibration monitoring for operational modal analysis of an integral abutment highway bridge. Eng Struct 31:2224–2235
Lekidis V, Tsakiri M, Makra K, Karakostas C, Klimis N, Sous I (2005) Evaluation of dynamic response and local soil effects of the Evripos cable-stayed bridge using multi-sensor monitoring systems. Eng Geol 79:43–59
Abu-Hejleh N, Zornberg JG, Wang T, Watcharamonthein J (2002) Monitored displacements of unique geosynthetic-reinforced soil bridge abutments. Geosynth Int 9:171
Huang NE, Shen Z, Long SR, Wu MC, Shih HH, Zheng Q, Yuen NC, Tung CC, Liu HH (1998) The empirical mode decomposition and the Hilbert spectrum for nonlinear and non-stationary time series analysis. Proc R Soc London 454A:903–995
Huang NE, Shen Z, Long SR (1999) A new view of non-linear water waves: the Hilbert spectrum. Annu Rev Fluid Mech 31:417–457
Dicleli M, Erhan S (2010) Effect of soil-bridge interaction on the magnitude of internal forces in integral abutment bridge components due to live load effects. Eng Struct 32:129–145
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support from the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Huffman, J.T., Xiao, F., Chen, G. et al. Detection of soil-abutment interaction by monitoring bridge response using vehicle excitation. J Civil Struct Health Monit 5, 389–395 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13349-015-0114-y
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13349-015-0114-y