Research: Introduction to Z24 Bridge and Health Monitoring

Schematics of the Z24 BridgeZ24 SchematicsPicture of the Z24 BridgeZ24 Picture Damage Scenario – Cutting the PierAnother Damage Scenario – Failure of Anchor Heads Introduction:

  • As part of my doctoral thesis work I developed an algorithm for extracting a modal model for a dynamic system from measured vibration data that was named The Algorithm of Mode Isolation (AMI).  A Multi-Input-Multi-Output implementation of the algorithm was applied to baseline response data from the Z24 Highway bridge in Switzerland and the results compared with those presented by other researchers in:  Modal Identification of the Z24 Bridge Using MIMO-AMI.  The previous SIMO version was used here.
    • The proposed AMI algorithm was able to identify the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the bridge at least as well as the best available methods.
  • The Z24 Bridge was tested extensively to evaluate the feasibility of using vibration data to monitor the condition of a civil structure.  Various types of damage were applied to the bridge and attempts were made to identify the damage using vibration measurements.  This PDF gives an overview.  Also see this site.  The actual data is available here.
    • The algorithm that I developed has not yet been applied to the data from the Z24 bridge in the damaged state (which was only recently made generally available), although it was applied to detect damage in flip chips as described in a recent publication.

Mode Shape Animations from Z24 Bridge:  (The following are the mode shapes found by MIMO AMI, as described in:  Modal Identification of the Z24 Bridge Using MIMO-AMI )These are all GIF animations and should play in your browser window.