Smart Structures LLC

Leading the Technology in Structural Health Monitoring

US Transportation Infrastructure Issues

Having built the transportation system and with the expansion days largely behind, the biggest challenge faced by the transportation authorities now in the 21st century is to preserve the quality of the national investment. As documented over the past few years by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), America is failing to address its current substandard transportation infrastructure conditions, which affect highway safety and the health of the economy. Americas highway system is faced with a growing number of concerns, including aging infrastructure, dramatically expanding traffic volumes, and an urgent need for increased security and safety. Improvements are needed in transportation infrastructure, homeland security. In order to reduce the large number of deficient bridges, a more cost effective procedure for allocating bridge funds must be established. The principal objective of a Bridge Health Monitoring System is to make the best use of available funds in an overall bridge maintenance, rehabilitation, and replacement program. The decision making, either at the level of the entire bridge population in a state (network level) or for an individual bridge (project level), is based on bridge conditions at the present and in the future. The allocation of funds for bridge maintenance can best be made by analyzing the data collected from sensors and then considering several improvement, maintenance, rehabilitation, and replacement options and optimizing the selected option on a network or project level.

Concept of Health Monitoring

The Structural Health Monitoring System is designed to monitor and evaluate the health status for the Bridge and to provide necessary information for facilitating inspection and maintenance activities. The sensors of the Structural Health Monitoring System are designed to collect structural responses such as strain, crack opening displacement and acceleration. The objectives of Health Monitoring are mainly to:

1)Analyze traffic concerning inputs and responses; 2)Obtain the structures global dynamic characteristics; 3) Obtain real-time data for acceleration, displacement, stress, strain for the structure. 4)Characterize temperature influences on strain, crack opening displacement, and acceleration; 5) Provide information on the extent of crack growth, the state of shear reinforcement in the web, and possible changes in load carrying capacity; 6) Report on overall health of the structure including scouring, bridge bearing, expansion joints, light posts, sign posts. 7)Determine the parameters for Finite Element model (FEM) updating (important for damage sensitivity analysis); 8)Provide useful information to help owners and maintenance authorities make rational decisions in allocating maintenance and repair budgets.

Smart Structures

Accomplishments

Smart Structures has been working on the sensor technology development for health monitoring of bridges and other civil infrastructure in collaboration with University of Illinois at Chicago. Smart Structures has, in collaboration with University of Illinois at Chicago successfully monitored the Kishwaukee bridge in Illinois and installed health monitoring systems overseas on bridges and structures in China and Japan. Smart Structures is involved in integrating sensor technology and developing and deploying smart monitoring systems on the structures for cost effective management and preservation of transportation assets and thus improve the safety and efficiency of highway infrastructure. Smart Structures collaborates with ATREL (Advance Transportation Research Lab) also in Rantoul, Illinois which works in cooperation with the Uof I, Army Corp of Engineers, Association of American Railroads, Federal Aviation Administration, Illinois Department of Transportation, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, other governmental and private agencies.

Smart Structures

Goals and Vision

With the experience of 3 years of real-time monitoring of the Kishwaukee Bridge on I-39 in Illinois, Smart Structures is involved in integrating sensor technology and developing and deploying smart monitoring systems on the structures for cost effective management and preservation of transportation assets and thus improve the safety and efficiency of highway infrastructure. Smart Structures is supporting research in the field of innovative sensor development to introduce new products/technologies to facilitate a better and improved transportation infrastructure. Smart Structures will be participating in creating health assessment database for National Bridge Structures. Smart Structures promotes improved safety, security, performance and efficiency of transportation infrastructure. Smart Structures is participating with a group of business associates to create an industry association.

Capabilities

Bridge Damage Inspection and Damage Assessment Bridge Ratings by Rapid Load Tests Bridge global Health Monitoring Innovative sensor development Rapid sensor assembly for measuring strain, acceleration, displacement, vibration, strain/stress and temperature. Sensor Integration Wireless Data Acquisition; facilitating reduction in cable costs and installation. Real time data acquisition, Web-Base Interface Seismic data analysis Monitoring stability of bridge bearings Monitoring for piers, scouring for bridges Expansion joint assessment for bridges Expansion bearing motion Span rotation Pier tilt and subsidence Vibration frequency and amplitude Rebar corrosion Assessing the safety of roadside light posts and sign posts

Kishwaukee Bridge
Health Monitoring Project

The Kishwaukee River Bridge is a twin pre-stressed concrete box girder structure located in Winnebago County, Illinois. The bridge was the first continuous single-cell box girder bridge with pre-cast concrete segments post tensioned and epoxied together. The box girders are five-span continuous structures with three interior spans (250 ft/ 76.2m) and two exterior spans (170ft/51.8m) with total length of 1090 ft.
The

remote Structural Monitoring System was designed to monitor and evaluate the health status for the Kishwaukee Southbound Bridge and to provide necessary information for facilitating inspection and maintenance activities.

Sensors Installed on Kishwaukee Bridge

Strain gages, accelerometers, clip gages and LVDT gages were installed on the bridge for global and local monitoring of the bridge. Local strains and displacements were measured on the inside and outside of the webs, the presence and extent of crack growth and state of shear reinforcement in webs were observed. FEM model updating for global monitoring was performed. Static load test was performed on the bridge in 2000, mid-span deflection, axial strains in web closures; average strains and crack opening in webs were recorded. Shear stress/strain analysis was performed.

Data Acquisition System Network for Health Monitoring

Distributed data processing and structure analyzing Ethernet-based data Main transmission Server Powerful data storage and processing capability Embedded expert system Multi-levels warning strategy Web-based server application

Customer PC Data Archiving Data Processing Expert System Customer PC LAN Web Server /User Interface

Internet

Sensor Network (Optical fiber cable) Sensor Station #1 Sensor Station

#2

Sensor Station
#3

Sensor Station
#n

Bridge Monitoring Software for Kishwaukee Bridge

To access real time data, a customized user-friendly remote web-based Bridge Monitoring System (BMS) was developed. The BMS is a combination of sensor integration, warning and alarm system, statistical analysis and expert system. An automated monitoring system for the bridge has been deployed since December 2001. The system provides critical information on strains, displacements, accelerations and temperature at the key segments. A multi-year system maintenance and data analysis program was considered for the bridge for identification of an effective retrofit design.

QianJiang Bridge, China

A Smart Structures Project

Smart Structures is contracted by the Qianjiang Fourth Bridge Authority (China) to install stress and force measurement devices on several cables and hangers. The objective of this proposal is to provide a practical and proven approach of using E-M (Elasto-Magnetic) sensors to measure cable and hanger stresses and forces. A total of 35 sensors are to be installed at several hangers and post-tension cables for 3 spans. This proposal includes some methodologies and details regarding the design, placement and number of sensors as well as the knowledge of the power supply and data acquisition system for E-M sensors. It is our intention to design a simple, costeffective system that is easy to operate and maintain.
Sensors installed on the hangers of the QianJiang Bridge

The EM sensors were installed on the Qianjiang Bridge cables during the construction period.

ZhanJiang Bridge, China

Another Smart Structures Project

Smart Structures is working in collaboration with the Chinese Railroad Bridge Institute to design a distributed Intelligent Bridge Monitoring System for ZhanJiang Bay Bridge. Zhanjiang Bay Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge composed of 3 portions: east approach viaduct, main bridge, and west approach viaduct. The Main Bridge has a total length of 840meter. The monitoring system includes measurement of stress and the strain in the structure, temperature of the structure; dynamic mode analysis; force in stay-cables; structural space deformation; wind loads; structural loading condition; monitoring the connection joints of the steel and concrete beams.

The Bridge Monitoring System would include : sensor installation and sensor integration real time data acquisition Real time data preprocessing and post processing warning/alarm system, data archiving, expert system data interpretation and reporting.

Innovative Sensors Developed by Smart Structures

EM Sensors :
These sensors are capable of measuring the cable force/stress directly and thus provide information on the stress state of the bridge.

Wireless Sensors
Wireless sensors can be customized to measure strain, acceleration, temperature wirelessly in real-time.

Large Motion Sensors ( Fiber optics, no electrical current input)

These Large Motion Sensors, placed at the extremities of the bridge spans, are fiber optic digital encoders that can measure several inches of motion with a resolution of 2 thousandths. Placed above and below the Neutral Axis, these sensors will track: 1)Expansion bearing motion as a function of temperature 2)Span rotation arising from deflection due to: Long term degradation Transient traffic loading 3) Vibration frequency and amplitude 4) Pier tilt and subsidence 5)Side wind effects All of these parameters were correlated with the strain gauge and crack opening data for estimating the accuracy

The marriage of conventional sensors and the innovative sensors developed will result in a holistic picture of structural health

EM sensor
Magnetoelastic (EM) stress sensors are employed to monitor stress and corrosion in steel during bridge health evaluations. It functions by obtaining magnetic properties from steel cables and tendons, which can then be used to interpret the bridge cables state of stress. EM sensors can be custom made for any size of cables/strands.

Projects successfully completed

Nanjing Bridge, China

Ashida Gawa bridge, Japan

South Dakota Bridge

Kumagaya Dome, Japan

Wireless Sensors

Wireless sensors developed by Smart Structures measure strain, displacement, acceleration and temperature wirelessly and in real-time. Wireless sensors reduce the cable installation and maintenance cost, thus enabling rapid installation and assembly of sensors. The data is obtained remotely and analyzed efficiently.

Sensor point Main station

Child Board

8-CH PVDF

Customized Mother Board Board

New Fiber Optic Sensors

Passive optical encoders No electrical connections Fiber cable encoders tethers to CPU Designed for 40 year lifetime Three encoders per span Measure deck rotation Correlate with strain gauges Instant health change reading Deck sag Vibration frequency changes Expansion bearing anomalies Pier attitude changes Holistic bridge condition monitor Global picture of condition Vehicular impact effects Changes due to erosion Earthquake effects

Typical Bridge Encoder Layout

En coder

Sensors under Development

Rebar corrosion sensor

Retrofitted in borehole Isolates a sacrificial coupon Coupon corrosion induces expansion Analog readout of changes Visual Fiber optic remote option

Rebar corrosion sensor

Rotten Concrete Sensor

Retrofitted in borehole Isolates fixed pressure penetrometer Matrix softening allows penetration Analog readout of changes Visual Fiber optic remote option

Rotten Concrete Sensor

Indicator Arms

Sensors under Development

Threaded Fastener Clamp Load Monitor

First true clamping force monitor

Not tightened

Attached to bolt-head Integral with fastener Totally reversible visual readout >90% accurate No torque wrench needed No turn-of-nut needed

Magnifies bolt-head deflection

Correct load

Bolt-head is cantilever beam Deflection shrinks upper surface Laser-bonded shim magnifies motion

Shim magnifies motion 80X

Pointers angled when loose Pointers parallel when correct load Pointers touch when over-tight

Over-tightened