ABSTRACT
The N80-S1 River Slaney bridge is a composite steel bridge part of a motorway scheme in County Wexford, Ireland. Different aspects relating to deformations in the web plates of this bridge were identified during the construction phase for further consideration. There was visual evidence of deformations in the web plate of the steel girders along its full length. Despite the conduction of an inspection and testing which concluded the safety of the bridge and no structural concerns that would prevent its opening and use, the bridge authorities ultimately decided to conduct further monitoring and collection of data to demonstrate conclusively that the bridge wouldn’t be susceptible to web breathing and/or fatigue during its service life. In this way, a displacement monitoring at two web panels for a period of four months was envisioned and conducted. This was done through the use of linear potentiometers set up in two 7×7 grids instrumented at the identified web panels. In this document, the activities which comprised this monitoring, sensors installation, data capture and post-processing, and subsequent fatigue assessment, are presented.
