Deflections and Natural Frequencies as Parameters for Structural Health Monitoring: The Effect of Fatigue and Corrosion on the Deflections and the Natural Frequencies of Reinforced Concrete Beams

The Dutch road infrastructure contains a large number of concrete bridges and viaducts. Malfunction of these bridges and viaducts has large financial consequences. To avoid malfunctions of bridges, bridges need to be inspected frequently and actions should be taken when required. The reliability of the inspections of the health of a bridge could...

Effect of corrosion on the fatigue service-life on steel and reinforced concrete beams

Chloride-induced corrosion is a point of big concern in reinforced concrete (RC) structures. To monitor the actual health and to predict the remaining service-life of structures, it is important to understand the structural behaviour and the failure mechanism of structures exposed to chlorides under fatigue loading conditions. A beam test,...

Dynamically loaded beam failure under corroded conditions

De-icing salts, used on roads in heavy winters, may enter reinforced concrete (RC) structures via its capillary pore system or via cracks, initiating reinforcement corrosion and reducing its remaining service-life. Vehicles passing real bridges exert a dynamic impact action that might activate a fatigue failure mechanism. In order to generate...

Measuring deflections of a corroded concrete beam loaded dynamically by a four-point-bending test

One of the key-elements in Structural Health Monitoring of reinforced concrete structures is the level of rebar corrosion and the way in which it affects the structural performance. A dynamic four-point-bending test was developed to help understanding the deflections of concrete structures under corrod-ed conditions. With this test, two...

Automatic Degradation Detection During a Dynamic Loaded Beam Test

The remaining service life of concrete structures strongly depends on the corrosion level of the reinforcement bars. It explains that measuring the corrosion rate is a key issue in monitoring the structural health of concrete structures. A common and appropriate technique used to evaluate the instantaneous corrosion rate of steel reinforcement...

Changing model properties with time due to corrosion of a dynamically loaded reinforced concrete beam

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems are frequently used in civil infrastructures. One important durability property in reinforced concrete (RC) structures is the level of steel bar corrosion. In a dynamic four-point-bending test, two beams are loaded simultaneously, in which corrosion is accelerated in one of them. Since geophones are...

Structural monitoring and modal properties of a real time bridge and lab tests

For understanding the actual state of durability of concrete structures, it is important to know its response due to external loading. This response mainly depends on the actual structural and material properties of the structure, while loaded. Mechanical and chemical degradation are the main mechanisms that may affect these properties with time...

Modal analysis of a concrete highway bridge: Structural calculations and vibration-based results

In the field of civil infrastructure, Structural Health Monitoring systems are implemented more and more frequently with the aim to safeguard the safety and service-life of structures such as bridges and tunnels. Changes in the integrity of the material and/or structural properties of this class of structures is known to adversely affect their...

Data-intensive structural health monitoring in the infrawatch project

The InfraWatch project is a Dutch research project, aimed at developing novel techniques for large-scale monitoring of concrete infra-structures. The project involves a large bridge, fitted with multiple types of sensors that capture the high-resolution dynamic behavior of the bridge. With 145 sensors measuring at 100 Hz, a huge amount of data...

Understanding the impact of degradation of concrete structures