ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: As the civil engineering profession continues to grow with our ever aging infrastructure, structural health monitoring using nondestructive load testing techniques with comparison to an analytical structural model is rapidly becoming an economical method for decision-making related to asset management. A structural model, verified with collected field data, can provide an objective basis on the decisions to repair or replace bridges and the importance of each action to the safety of the driving public to determine the order in which bridge repairs need to be implemented. Several challenges will be presented to modelers including, but not limited to, not relying on design assumptions when creating finite element bridge models, finding the most efficient way to transmit truck load to the modeled bridge deck, and including specific elements present at the bridge in the monitoring based model. This paper discusses special topic studies relating to the issues above as successfully deployed and validated in a model updating exercise of the Rollins Road Bridge in Rollinsford, NH.
