Structural Identification for Condition Assessment of Swiss Bridges

The ageing infrastructure demographic along with certain pronounced failures in large civil structures have stressed the need for reliable monitoring methods that will be able to assess the condition of existing structures and detect on-time the onset of damages. Infrastructure operators in developed countries are currently more and more concerned with the number of structures approaching their design lifespan and are faced with decision making processes for the proper maintenance, repair and future use of structural systems. For the Swiss road system as well, the case is that several of the components of the network are at the point of their life span where a decision has to be taken concerning their potential repair or demolishment. The condition assessment of deteriorated civil infrastructure may be facilitated via use of proper Structural IDentification (St-ID) techniques combined with suitable testing schemes and appropriate response data from the structures in question. These tools provide simple solutions for detecting possible structural damage and deterioration and, when coupled with more refined non-destructive evaluation schemes, they can guide and facilitate more detailed investigations. The aim of this research project is to develop a testing process, accompanied by appropriate analysis methods, which can readily be adopted by ASTRA (FEDRO) significant information regarding the condition of deteriorated components of the Swiss infrastructure network. The main objectives of the proposed approach comprise its general applicability on bridge components, that's to say, without necessitating a thorough knowledge of each distinct structure, the usage of low cost equipment and the avoidance of costly and time-consuming testing procedures.