Traffic load modelling based on structural health monitoring data

Abstract

Live and fatigue load models are foundations for the life-cycle design of highway bridges. Many highway bridges are now equipped with structural health monitoring (SHM) systems, which provide valuable data to establish load models. In this paper, traffic load models of the Binzhou Yellow River Highway Bridge are developed based on the field measurement of vehicles by an existing SHM system. The probabilistic distribution model and extreme value distribution of gross vehicle weight are statistically analysed using the monitoring data. The results indicate that they follow the bimodal lognormal and Gumbel distributions, respectively. The fatigue load spectrum is also studied. The logistic model is employed to predict the long-term traffic volume, and its parameters of the logistic model are updated using the monitored traffic volume. The combination of the fatigue load spectrum and the traffic volume forecast using the updated logistic model provides a load model for estimation of fatigue damage evolution of bridges.