Health monitoring system for Dafosi cable-stayed bridge

This paper briefly describes a health monitoring system designed for use on the Dafosi Bridge, the largest cable-stayed bridge across the Yangtze River in western China. The system can be divided into two major components, one for measurement, and one for control and data processing. The measurement system itself includes four sensing subsystems relating to: 1) fiber optic strain sensing, 2) displacement sensing, 3) temperature sensing, and 4) dynamic measurements. The control and data processing system consists of three subsystems: 1) a local computer, 2) a communication subsystem, and 3) a host computer. Sensor outputs are pre-processed locally and sent to the host computer at the management center via the Internet. The system design and implementation are reviewed, and the results of data from two sensing subsystems are presented.