ABSTRACT
This paper intends to extract the fundamental frequency of a bridge from the dynamic response of a two-wheel cart towed by a light truck passing over the bridge. The truck serves as an exciter to the bridge, while the towed cart as a receiver of the bridge response. The response recorded using an accelerometer installed on the cart is processed by the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), from which the bridge frequency is extracted as the source frequency of excitation to the cart. The feasibility of the idea in scanning the bridge frequency from the towed cart response is confirmed by the field tests. Such an approach is simple, efficient and highly mobilized, which can be applied to a wide range of bridge problems, if only the fundamental frequency is of interest.
