Field Testing and Development of Novel SHM systems at Queen’s University Belfast

Ageing and deterioration of infrastructure is a challenge facing transport authorities. In<br/>particular, there is a need for increased bridge monitoring in order to provide adequate<br/>maintenance and to guarantee acceptable levels of transport safety. The Intelligent<br/>Infrastructure group at Queens University Belfast (QUB) are working on a number of aspects<br/>of infrastructure monitoring and this paper presents summarised results from three distinct<br/>monitoring projects carried out by this group. Firstly the findings from a project on next<br/>generation Bridge Weight in Motion (B-WIM) are reported, this includes full scale field testing<br/>using fibre optic strain sensors. Secondly, results from early phase testing of a computer<br/>vision system for bridge deflection monitoring are reported on. This research seeks to exploit<br/>recent advances in image processing technology with a view to developing contactless<br/>bridge monitoring approaches. Considering the logistical difficulty of installing sensors on a<br/>‘live’ bridge, contactless monitoring has some inherent advantages over conventional<br/>contact based sensing systems. Finally the last section of the paper presents some recent<br/>findings on drive by bridge monitoring. In practice a drive-by monitoring system will likely<br/>require GPS to allow the response of a given bridge to be identified; this study looks at the<br/>feasibility of using low-cost GPS sensors for this purpose, via field trials. The three topics<br/>outlined above cover a spectrum of SHM approaches namely, wired monitoring, contactless<br/>monitoring and drive by monitoring