Displacement measurements of highway bridges using digital image correlation methods

Abstract

Digital image correlation methods (DICMs) are important tools in experimental solid mechanics. DICM is becoming very versatile and cost effective due to the dramatic improvement over the digital cameras. Current study applies DICMs to displacement measurements of full-scale concrete beams. Computer programs are implemented and tested against the contact measurements using a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT). The calculated displacements agree with the LVDT measurements that the difference is mostly within 3%. The DICM programs produce similar displacement fields to those obtained using two computer codes written by other researchers. The DICM programs compute a singlepoint in merely seconds while completing the displacement calculation for a whole-field region of one mega pixels in one hour. Additional tests on the vertical displacement of a highway bridge also achieve a reasonable result which can be extended to health monitoring of bridges.