ABSTRACT
The condition assessment of critical infrastructure subjected to various environmental effects and extreme loadings such as aeging bridges becomes increasingly important. Monitoring provides the possibility to evaluate the structural performance and identify damage. Sensor-based monitoring systems typically measure accelerations, strains, displacements and inclinations. Whilst piezo-electric sensors are most commonly used in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems, MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) based sensors are growing in popularity because they are small and inexpensive. Novel miniaturized accelerometers can be used to measure local rotation on a structure to determine the deformation state. In this paper, the effect of temperature and long-term stability of a MEMS-based accelerometer are systematically investigated on uncased and encased sensors. Possibilities for compensation are described, while several questions arise from the measured data, which are also presented. It is shown that due to the imperfection of the novel MEMS-based sensor, uncertainty is incorporated in the measurement. The application of these sensors during the construction of cable-stayed bridges is discussed.
