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Twenty-five percent of the bridges in the United States are either
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. More than 40% of Canada's operational
bridges are over 30 years old – and often damaged by that cold-weather country's
climate and use of roadway de-icing salts. In the United Kingdom, officials warn
that bridges and other structures must be strengthened to meet requirements
established by the European Community. Back in the U.S., highway engineers remember
the collapse of the Interstate-35W (I-35W) Bridge in Minneapolis, an August
2007 tragedy that killed 13 and injured more than 100.
Bridge maintenance and repairs are necessary, of course, but
paying for them in an age of tight budgets isn't easy. Fortunately, structural
health monitoring (SHM) instruments allow transportation agencies to monitor
the condition of civil structures - and hopefully avert the next bridge disaster.
By positioning closed-loop sensors with a servo torque mechanism on a highway bridge,
engineers can acquire volumes of data via high-speed fiber optic or even wireless
connections. But advances in communications and data transmission are only part
of the story. Complex algorithms allow analysts to prepare both short-term and
long-term structural integrity assessments.
Should highway engineers do even more with SHM instruments in
an age when most maintenance departments must live with less?
Source: Sensors
Magazine
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