A signal processing approach for long-term monitoring of quay structures

The structural monitoring of complex structures like harbour facilities is actually the only way for reaching as close as possible their real in-service behaviour. The paper shows that the interpretation of data from a long-term static monitoring can be very helpful for the comprehension of the structural behaviour under complex interaction structure-environment. The discussion aims at underlining that a scheduled and unique procedure is very hard to define depending on the great variety of the applications and on the right identification of the parameters able to explain structural evolutions or changes. A multi-step algorithm with different signal processing techniques applied in cascade seems to be the only reliable approach. The proposed procedure will be carried out by using available data from the monitoring of a quay wall in the Port of Genoa, in Italy, but it can be generalized to similar structures subjected to cyclic loading.