Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725

www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Technology developments in structural health monitoring of

large-scale bridges
J.M. Ko∗, Y.Q. Ni
Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Available online 14 July 2005

Abstract

The significance of implementing long-term structural health monitoring systems for large-scale bridges, in order to secure structural and
operational safety and issue early warnings on damage or deterioration prior to costly repair or even catastrophic collapse, has been recognized
by bridge administrative authorities. Developing a long-term monitoring system for a large-scale bridge—one that is really able to provide
information for evaluating structural integrity, durability and reliability throughout the bridge life cycle and ensuring optimal maintenance
planning and safe bridge operation—poses technological challenges at different levels, from the selection of proper sensors to the design of a
structural health evaluation system. This paper explores recent technology developments in the field of structural health monitoring and their
application to large-scale bridge projects. The need for technological fusion from different disciplines, and for a structural health evaluation
paradigm that is really able to help prioritize bridge rehabilitation, maintenance and emergency repair, is highlighted.
© 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Large-scale bridge; Structural health monitoring (SHM); Instrumentation system; Damage detection; Bridge maintenance

1. Introduction inspection, rehabilitation, maintenance and repair; (v) mon-

itor repairs and reconstruction with the view of evaluating
The development of structural health monitoring tech- the effectiveness of maintenance, retrofit and repair works;
nology for surveillance, evaluation and assessment of exist- and (vi) obtain massive amounts of in situ data for leading-
ing or newly built bridges has now attained some degree of edge research in bridge engineering, such as wind- and
maturity. On-structure long-term monitoring systems have earthquake-resistant designs, new structural types and smart
been implemented on bridges in Europe [1–4], the United material applications.
States [5,6], Canada [7,8], Japan [9,10], Korea [11,12], The development and implementation of a structural
China [13–15] and other countries [16–18]. Bridge struc- health monitoring system capable of fully achieving
tural health monitoring systems are generally envisaged to:
the above objectives and benefits is still a challenge
(i) validate design assumptions and parameters with the po-
at present, and needs well coordinated interdisciplinary
tential benefit of improving design specifications and guide-
research for full adaptation of innovative technologies
lines for future similar structures; (ii) detect anomalies in
developed in other disciplines to applications in the
loading and response, and possible damage/deterioration at
civil engineering community. Actually, structural health
an early stage to ensure structural and operational safety;
monitoring has been a subject of major international
(iii) provide real-time information for safety assessment
immediately after disasters and extreme events; (iv) provide research in recent years [19–21]. The research in this subject
evidence and instruction for planning and prioritizing bridge covers sensing, communication, signal processing, data
management, system identification, information technology,
etc. It requires collaboration between civil, mechanical,
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 2766 5037; fax: +852 2766 1354. electrical and computer engineering among others. The
E-mail address: cejmko@inet.polyu.edu.hk (J.M. Ko). current challenges for bridge structural health monitoring

0141-0296/$ - see front matter © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2005.02.021
1716 J.M. Ko, Y.Q. Ni / Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725

are being identified as distributed and embedded sensing, improvement from the Tsing Ma Bridge monitoring system
data management and storage, data mining and knowledge to the Stonecutters Bridge monitoring system includes more
discovery, diagnostic methods, and presentation of useful environment-measuring sensors such as corrosion sensors,
and reliable information to bridge owners/managers for barometers, hygrometers and pluviometers to facilitate
decision making on maintenance and management. In this bridge safety/reliability assessment [40]. Another example is
article, after an overview of current status of large-scale the Sutong Bridge monitoring system that will incorporate
bridge health monitoring practice, the authors explore some a majority of the embedded sensors currently belonging
key issues concerning the above challenges, in a perspective to a foundation stability and safety monitoring system
of both researchers and practicers, by referring to several (designed for construction monitoring only) to enhance
health monitoring engineering paradigms. the superstructure long-term monitoring system for bridge
durability assessment.
2. State-of-the-practice in bridge monitoring systems
3. Sensing and data acquisition systems
Successful implementation and operation of long-term
structural health monitoring systems on bridges have been In the past decade significant progress has been made
widely reported. So far about 40 long-span bridges (with in sensing technology and kinds of innovative sensing
spans of 100 m or longer) worldwide have been instrumented systems such as fiber optic sensors and wireless sensors
with structural health monitoring systems [22]. Typical are now becoming commercially available [41–44]. A
examples are the Great Belt Bridge in Demark [1], the sensing system is essential to realizing structural health
Confederation Bridge in Canada [23], the Tsing Ma Bridge monitoring of bridges. The envisioned future for bridge
in Hong Kong [24], the Commodore Barry Bridge in health monitoring uses an array of inexpensive, spatially
United States [25], the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan [26], distributed, wirelessly powered, wirelessly networked,
and the Seohae Bridge in Korea [27]. Table 1 lists embedded sensing devices supporting frequent and on-
20 large-scale bridges in China (including the Hong Kong demand acquisition of real-time information about the
Special Administrative Region) instrumented with real-time loading and environmental effects, structural characteristics
monitoring systems. This listing does not comprise the East and responses. Fiber optic sensors have successfully been
Sea Bridge (consisting of two cable-stayed bridges with applied for long-term structural health monitoring of large-
main spans of 420 m and 332 m respectively), the Hangzhou scale bridges (e.g., [45,46] among others), whereas the
Bay Bridge (consisting of two cable-stayed bridges with application of wireless sensors for bridge monitoring is still
main spans of 448 m and 318 m respectively) and the 3rd in the technology demonstration stage [43].
Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge (a cable-stayed bridge with a It is worth mentioning that some conventional sensors
main span of 648 m) of which the long-term structural health become infeasible and impracticable when applied to large-
monitoring systems are currently under design. scale bridges for long-term monitoring. For example, it is a
Several recent trends in structural health monitoring difficult task to measure the deflection (absolute displace-
practice for large-scale bridges are worth mentioning. (i) For ment) of long-span bridges. The traditional displacement
some recent bridges such as the Shenzhen Western Corridor, transducers can only be used for relative displacement mea-
the Stonecutters Bridge, the Shanghai Chongming Crossing surement, while laser transducers and total stations have
(a cable-stayed bridge with a main span of 1200 m) been proven unsuitable for long-term monitoring of long-
and the Messina Strait Bridge (a suspension bridge with span bridges. The current solution to this problem is to use
a main span of 3300 m), the design of a monitoring a global positioning system (GPS). However, the application
system is required in the tender as part of the bridge of a GPS for bridge monitoring has two limitations: (i) the
design. Integration of bridge design and monitoring system measurement accuracy of a GPS is not good enough to com-
design ensures that design engineers’ important concerns pletely meet bridge health monitoring requirement; and (ii) a
are reflected in the monitoring system while civil provisions GPS does not work well for monitoring the displacement
for implementing a monitoring system are considered of piers beneath the bridge deck (caused by ships collid-
in the bridge design. (ii) The implementation of long- ing, settlement, etc.). Strain measurement is another issue
term monitoring systems on new bridges such as the which is essential for bridge health assessment. There are
4th Qianjiang Bridge, the Shenzhen Western Corridor, the two types of commonly used strain sensor: electrical resis-
Stonecutters Bridge and the Sutong Bridge is accomplished tance strain gauges and vibrating wire strain gauges. Both
in synchronism with the bridge construction progress. In this of them have defects: electrical resistance strain gauges are
way some specific types of sensors, e.g., corrosion sensors, capable of measuring dynamic strain but possess low zero-
strain gauges and fiber optic sensors can be embedded stability which results in drift of the measurand over time;
into the structure during certain bridge erection stages. vibrating wire strain gauges have high zero-stability but can
(iii) The recently devised long-term health monitoring only be used for quasi-static strain measurement. These defi-
systems emphasize multi-purpose monitoring of the bridge ciencies of traditional strain gauges have invoked increasing
integrity, durability and reliability. In Hong Kong, an applications of innovative fiber optic sensors for long-term
 J.M. Ko, Y.Q. Ni / Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725 1717

Table 1
Major bridges in China instrumented with long-term monitoring systems

No. Bridge name Bridge type Location Main span (m) Sensors installed

1 Jiangyin Bridge (after upgrade) [28] suspension Jiangsu 1385 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (9), (10), (13)
2 1st Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge [29] steel truss Jiangsu 160 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (7), (14)
3 2nd Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge [30] cable-stayed Jiangsu 628 (1), (2), (3), (4), (7), (9), (13), (16)
4 Runyang South Bridge [31] suspension Jiangsu 1490 (1), (2), (3), (4), (6)
5 Runyang North Bridge [31] cable-stayed Jiangsu 406 (1), (2), (3), (4)
6 Sutong Bridge [32] cable-stayed Jiangsu 1088 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9),
(10), (11), (16), (18)
7 Tsing Ma Bridge [15] suspension Hong Kong 1377 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (12), (18)
8 Kap Shui Mun Bridge [15] cable-stayed Hong Kong 430 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (12), (18)
9 Ting Kau Bridge [15] cable-stayed Hong Kong 475 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (12), (18)
10 Shenzhen Western Corridor [15] cable-stayed Hong Kong 210 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (7), (8), (15),
(16), (17), (18)
11 Stonecutters Bridge [15] cable-stayed Hong Kong 1018 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9),
(10), (11), (15), (16), (17), (18)
12 Tongling Yangtze River Bridge [33] cable-stayed Anhui 432 (1), (2), (4), (11),(13)
13 Wuhu Bridge [34] cable-stayed Anhui 312 (2), (3), (4), (5), (10), (12)
14 Humen Bridge [35] suspension Guangdong 888 (3), (6), (11), (12)
15 Zhanjiang Bay Bridge [6] cable-stayed Guangdong 480 (1), (2), (3), (5), (6), (9), (11), (14), (16)
16 Xupu Bridge [36] cable-stayed Shanghai 590 (2), (3), (4), (7), (12)
17 Lupu Bridge [37] arch Shanghai 550 (2), (3), (4), (12)
18 Dafosi Bridge [38] cable-stayed Chongqing 450 (2), (3), (4), (5), (10), (12)
19 Binzhou Yellow River Bridge [14] cable-stayed Shandong 300 (1), (2), (3), (4), (6), (10)
20 4th Qianjiang Bridge [39] arch Zhejiang 580 (1), (2), (3), (4), (9),(13)

Note: (1)—anemometers; (2)—temperature sensors; (3)—strain gauges; (4)—accelerometers; (5)—displacement transducers; (6)—global positioning
systems; (7)—weigh-in-motion systems; (8)—corrosion sensors; (9)—elasto-magnetic sensors; (10)—optic fiber sensors; (11)—tiltmeters; (12)—level
sensors; (13)—total stations; (14)—seismometers; (15)—barometers; (16)—hygrometers; (17)—pluviometers; (18)—video cameras.

monitoring of large-scale bridges. Fig. 1 illustrates such an ‘strain-free’ inside each steel tube for distributed tempera-
application where fiber optic sensors are deployed along the ture measurement along the cable length. The technology
deck length of the suspension Jiangyin Bridge for both strain of Brillouin-optical time-domain reflectometry (B-OTDR) is
and temperature measurement. The most attractive feature of used, by which a laser pulse is launched into the optic fiber
fiber optic sensors is their capability of distributed sensing that serves as the sensing element and the temperature mea-
and measurement which will result in elaborate condition surement is achieved by combining the scattering informa-
monitoring for large-scale bridges. The existent main obsta- tion with propagation time of the laser pulses along the fiber.
cle to wide acceptance of fiber optic sensors for bridge mon- It is noted that seven galvanized wires have been added at the
itoring application is the lack of engineering demonstration outermost of the cable cross-section to keep the total area of
of the durability of the sensors in a harsh environment and the wires unaltered. Meanwhile, fiber Bragg grating (FBG)
long-term performance of their attachment to construction sensors are embedded in the cable ends for strain measure-
materials. ment. The strain of the cable near its anchorages is mea-
Another promising application of fiber optic sensors for sured with FBG arrays epoxied onto the outside surface of
cable-supported bridges is the embedment of sensors in- the steel tubes, as shown in Fig. 2. The FBG arrays consist
side the bridge cables for both temperature and strain mea- of three FBG strain sensors spaced 2 m apart. The FBGs
surement. An interdisciplinary research team in Hong Kong are sensitive to both strain and temperature. The tempera-
Polytechnic University has devised such a fiber optic sens- ture of the FBGs is obtained from the B-OTDR system, and
ing system for the cable-stayed Sutong Bridge. In this therefore the strain applied to the FBGs can be determined.
design shown in Fig. 2, seven out of the wires compos- Because the FBG arrays are installed along the steel tubes
ing the cable cross-section have been replaced by stainless which are used to accommodate B-OTDR for temperature
steel tubes for the deployment of fiber optic sensors. Optic measurement, extra steel tubes and wire area reduction are
fibers in terms of the Brillouin scattering sensors are laid eschewed.
1718 J.M. Ko, Y.Q. Ni / Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725

Fig. 1. Layout of fiber optic sensors on the Jiangyin Bridge.

Fig. 2. Fiber optic sensors embedded inside a bridge cable cross-section.

 J.M. Ko, Y.Q. Ni / Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725 1719

Fig. 3. Layout of sensors and DAUs on the Sutong Bridge.

On-structure data acquisition units (DAUs) or outstations are placed inside the two towers (one inside each tower)
are indispensable to structural health monitoring systems for near the base to collect data from sensors placed below
long-span bridges. DAUs are assigned at several locations of the pylon base level, including those currently belonging to
the bridge to collect the signals from neighboring sensors, the foundation stability and safety monitoring system (more
digitize the analog signals and transmit the data into a central than 1400 sensors are involved in this system). Making use
room outside the bridge. They also have the function of of the MXI-3 technique, the transmission cabling length
short-term data storage and preliminary signal processing. limitation can be released without employing additional
For large-scale bridges with densely distributed sensors, DAUs. In this design, each DAU is able to support at most
optimal deployment of DAUs plays a significant role in eight sub-stations with the aid of MXI-3 extension slots.
assuring the quality and fidelity of the acquired data. The Lessons learned from the practice on existing bridge
number of DAUs required relies on the number of sensor monitoring systems tell us that utmost care must be taken
channels in high sampling rate and in low sampling rate. with the protection of DAUs. At least two health monitoring
The placement of the DAUs is primarily dependent on the systems for the instrumented bridges listed in Table 1 were
location of analog-type sensors, especially those with low- found with malfunction in all or some DAUs after operation
sensitivity voltage-signal output. The operating environment for a few years, due to improper protection. The on-structure
and allowable maximum distance between the sensors and DAUs must be designed against a variety of environmental
DAUs have to be considered to eliminate transmission conditions such as temperature, humidity, lightning and
loss/noise and to protect the DAUs from interference. electromagnetic interference. The Sutong Bridge project
In implementing the structural health monitoring system provides an excellent example to demonstrate this issue. Due
for the Sutong Bridge, a distributed data acquisition to limited space of carriageway, five DAUs in the Sutong
system based on the PXI/SCXI and MXI-3 techniques has Bridge have to be placed inside the box girders. Moreover,
been devised to overcome the transmission cabling length in order to prevent the steel girders from corrosion, the
limitation while minimizing the number of DAUs. The structural design requires that the humidity inside the sealed
system is comprised of seven DAUs connected by a FDDI box is kept constant by a dehumidification system, and the
dual-loop fiber optic network to the central room. Each inner air is prohibited to circulate with the outer air. We
DAU is comprised of a main station (MS) and optional have to meet this requirement in designing the protective
sub-stations (SSs) as illustrated in Fig. 3. The main station system for DAUs. A stainless steel cabinet as illustrated
consists of a PXI instrument platform, a signal conditioning in Fig. 4 is designed to house each DAU and to protect
system and data acquisition modules, while the sub-station it from dust, temperature, humidity, and electromagnetic
(SS) has no PXI instrument platform. Each sub-station is interference. An air conditioning system is settled inside the
connected to its main station with an MXI-3 interface kit cabinet to accommodate severe temperature conditions in
and is remotely controlled by the main station. The PXI the interior of the steel box girders, which may vary from
instrument platform with a PXI controller is responsible below 0 ◦ C to over 60 ◦ C. To disable the air inside the
for the operation of the DAU, signal preprocessing and cabinet from circulating with the air in the interior of the
communication with the central room. In the Sutong steel box, two holes of 150 mm in diameter are reserved at
Bridge, two sub-stations (SS2-1 and SS6-1; refer to Fig. 3), the lower deck flange in the vicinity of the main station and
respectively connected to the main stations MS2 and MS6, a refrigerant entry pipe and a refrigerant exit pipe are used to
1720 J.M. Ko, Y.Q. Ni / Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725

Fig. 4. Design of a cabinet for housing and protecting DAUs.

circulate the interior air of the cabinet with the air outside the will the normal changes raise a false-positive alarm nor will
deck box directly. Also, an isolation transformer is adopted the abnormal changes raise a false-negative alarm in damage
at each DAU to protect it from lightning. detection. With a thorough understanding of the effect of
environmental variability on modal properties, it is possible
4. Effect of environmental factors on measurement data to detect subtle structural damage by incorporating a well
defined environmental effect model into appropriate damage
A main distinction of structural health monitoring detection algorithms [51–54].
systems from conventional measurement systems is that Numerous investigations indicate that temperature is the
the former incorporates damage diagnostic and prognostic critical source causing modal variability, and the variations
algorithms. Extensive research on structural damage of modal frequencies caused by temperature may reach 5%
identification algorithms has been conducted in the to 10% for highway bridges, which in most cases exceed
past decades and literature reviews on this subject are the changes of frequencies due to structural damage or
available [47–49]. Most widely studied are vibration-based deterioration. Since long-term structural health monitoring
damage detection methods. The vibration-based damage systems for large-scale bridges usually include both
detection methods use measured changes in dynamic vibration transducers and temperature sensors, quantitative
features (mainly modal parameters) to evaluate changes understanding and modeling of the effect of temperature on
in physical properties that may indicate structural damage modal properties can be made by using the measurement
or degradation. In reality, however, a civil structure data covering a full cycle of in-service environmental
is subjected to varying environmental and operational conditions. With one year of measurement data from
conditions such as traffic, humidity, wind, solar-radiation the instrumented Ting Kau Bridge [55], a comparative
and, most important, temperature. These environmental study of evaluating the effectiveness of various statistical
effects also cause change in modal parameters which regression/learning methods [56] for modeling the effect of
may mask the change caused by structural damage. The temperature on modal frequencies is being conducted by the
evaluation results on the effectiveness of a variety of writers. As part of a long-term structural health monitoring
vibration-based damage detection methods applied to the I- system for this cable-stayed bridge, a total of 83 temperature
40 Bridge indicated that the environmental effects were one sensors and 45 accelerometers (67 channels) have been
of the main pitfalls limiting the practical applicability of installed for real-time measurement of temperature and
modal-based methods [5,50]. For reliability performance of dynamic response [15,24]. The modal frequencies of the
damage detection algorithms, it is of paramount importance bridge are obtained by applying an automatic modal
to discriminate abnormal changes in dynamic features identification program to the measured acceleration data at
caused by structural damage from normal changes due to one-hour intervals, and the corresponding temperatures at
environmental and operational fluctuations, so that neither 20 selected sensor locations are obtained by averaging over
 J.M. Ko, Y.Q. Ni / Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725 1721

Fig. 5. Frequency sequences measured and generated by the linear Fig. 6. Frequency sequences measured and generated by the nonlinear
regression model: (a) training data; (b) validation data. regression model: (a) training data; (b) validation data.

one hour. A total of 770 hours of data covering one year’s

measurement are used for studying the correlation between shows stronger generalization capability (less standard
the modal frequencies and temperatures. deviation of residual error and better normality of the error
The correlation analysis has been conducted by means distribution) than the linear model, but is still short of
of linear and nonlinear regression models, neural network accurately predicting the frequency variations. Figs. 7 and
models and support vector machine models. Although 8 illustrate the reproduced and predicted results obtained
several investigators [57,58] suggested taking into account by neural network and support vector machine models,
thermal inertia by relating current output not only with respectively. These two models exhibit good capabilities
current input but also with previous input, we use only in both reproduction and prediction. It is found that a
static correlation models because the measurement data perceptron neural network with a single hidden layer is
sequence is not always temporally continuous at constant sufficient for modeling the correlation and an appropriate
sampling intervals. Fig. 5 shows the first modal frequency number of hidden nodes is crucial to achieve superior
sequences obtained by measurement and by the linear prediction performance of the trained model (excessive
regression model. The linear regression model is obtained hidden nodes may cause serious attenuation of the prediction
by least-squares fitting of the training data. It is observed capability). When a support vector machine (SVM) is used
that this model reproduces the training data well but is for modeling the correlation, the prediction capability of the
poor in predicting fresh validation data. Also illustrated in trained model is heavily dependent on the selection of the
the figure is the distribution of residual error. An adequate SVM coefficients [60]. If the SVM coefficients are optimally
model should generate the distribution close to Gaussion determined also using the training data like the model
population. Fig. 6 shows the corresponding results obtained parameters, such an obtained model may manifest over-
by a nonlinear ridge regression model in terms of the Radial- fitting and perform poorly in prediction. A more advisable
basis kernel function [59]. The nonlinear regression model way is to determine the model parameters by means of
1722 J.M. Ko, Y.Q. Ni / Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725

Fig. 7. Frequency sequences measured and generated by the neural network Fig. 8. Frequency sequences measured and generated by the support vector
model: (a) training data; (b) validation data. machine model: (a) training data; (b) validation data.

training data while optimizing the SVM coefficients with the

use of independent validation data. proposed by the writers and envisaged for application in
the management of the instrumented Sutong and Jiangyin
Bridges. The proposed method is targeted to provide
5. Linkage with bridge maintenance and management quantitative information to bridge managers for decision
making on optimizing and prioritizing bridge inspection and
The development of structural health monitoring methods maintenance. According to the reliability theory, the failure
for the detection of damage occurrence, location and severity probability P f (or safety index β) of a structural component
has now attained some degree of maturity. However, the can be evaluated by considering both the member resistance
application of these monitoring data/results for instructing (capacity) R and the load effect S as random variables:
bridge inspection, maintenance and management is still in its


infancy [61]. A gap between health monitoring technology Pf = f R (r ) f S (s)dr ds (1)
r−s<0
and bridge inspection, maintenance and management
exercises exists currently which impedes bridge managers where f R (r ) and f S (s) are probability density functions of
from benefiting from the monitoring system. From the R and S. In this method, the probability density function
monitoring data the bridge managers want to get answers of the load effect S (stress, bending moment, shear force,
to the serviceability and reliability issues: (a) has the load etc.) is obtained directly from continuous measurement or
capacity or resistance of the structure changed? (b) what derived from continuously measured strain. Fig. 9 illustrates
is the probability of failure of the structural members such a distribution of measured stresses at a deck component
and the whole structure? Indicators of these performance of the instrumented Tsing Ma Bridge. The probability
issues are needed to enable the owners to allocate resources density function f S (s) is then estimated from this measured
toward inspection, maintenance and rehabilitation of their distribution which is not required necessarily to be Gaussian.
structures. When the measured strain/stress distribution varies due
A method for evaluating the failure probability (or to structural damage or loading condition, the probability
safety index) of bridge components based on long-term density function f S (s) thus obtained will also be changed
monitoring data and time-dependent reliability analysis is accordingly.
 J.M. Ko, Y.Q. Ni / Engineering Structures 27 (2005) 1715–1725 1723

environmental loading are accounted for in the evaluation

of the safety index.

6. Conclusions

In this paper, key technology issues concerning structural

health monitoring of large-scale bridges have been outlined.
These include (i) the current status and recent trends in
bridge health monitoring exercises, (ii) implementation of
innovative sensing and data acquisition systems in long-
term health monitoring practice, (iii) application of advanced
Fig. 9. Distribution of measured stresses in a structural component.
computational techniques in inferring knowledge from
measurement data, and (iv) linkage between structural health
The probability density function of the resistance monitoring technology and bridge inspection, maintenance
(capacity) R for an intact (healthy) member is calculated and management exercises. It has been shown that advances
using the mean value and standard deviation of material in sensing systems, signal processing, communications
strength prescribed in standards or obtained by in situ and data-mining technology are providing a new way
material tests. When damage-induced change in member for inspection and monitoring of bridge safety. Bridge
stiffness or structural properties is detected by the health health monitoring systems can offer valuable information in
monitoring system, the probability density function f R (r ) evaluating structural integrity, durability and reliability, and
will be changed accordingly to account for the structural in ensuring optimal maintenance planning and safe bridge
damage. For instance, the moment resistance will be reduced operations. With the establishment of an appropriate linkage,
by α/(1 − α) when a fractional loss α(= 1 − EI d /EI u ) structural health monitoring is ultimately able to provide
in bending stiffness is detected [62]. In this way, the direct information for bridge inspection and maintenance,
effect of detectable structural damage (expressed in either and would most benefit bridge owners with regard to asset
a deterministic or probabilistic manner) on the failure management.
probability is accounted for.
Corrosion and fatigue are two important factors affecting Acknowledgements
the structural performance of bridges. With the measured
chloride data and stress history from long-term monitoring
The work described in this paper was supported in
systems, the effects on the failure probability caused by
part by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the
corrosion and fatigue are estimated using the corresponding
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project
reliability models [63,64] and interpreted in terms of a
No. PolyU 5142/04E) and partially by a grant from the Hong
‘condition factor’ f c . The overall failure probability is
Kong Polytechnic University through the Area of Strategic
obtained by multiplying the ‘base probability of failure’
Development Programme (Research Centre for Urban
given in Eq. (1) with the ‘condition factor’ f c as well as the
Hazards Mitigation). Sincere appreciation goes to Dr. K.Y.
‘loading factor’ fl and ‘redundancy factor’ fr [65]:
Wong of the Hong Kong SAR Highways Department for his
P of = P f · fc · fl · fr . (2) all-out support to the research described in this paper. We
are grateful to our colleagues Prof. H.Y. Tam, Dr. T.H.T.
When the failure probability (or safety index) of Chan, Dr. K.Q. Fan, Mr. X.G. Hua, Mr. H.F. Zhou and
structural components or sections under monitoring is Mr. G. Chen for their contributions in relevant research
obtained at regular intervals, it is easy to decide and development works. Thanks are also given to the
a bridge inspection/maintenance strategy because the collaborative partners at Jiangsu Transportation Research
correspondence between the safety index value and the Institute, especially Dr. Y.F. Zhang, on the structural health
required maintenance action has been established [66]. For monitoring projects of the Sutong and Jiangyin Bridges.
unmonitored structural components, the method is applied
for safety index evaluation with the help of a statically
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