Vibration based assessment of shear connectors in concrete composite bridges

During the past few decades, vibration-based damage detection techniques (VBT) have emerged as promising tools in assessing and detecting damage in structures (Yong et al, 2007 and Wahab and De Roeck, 1999). The basis of VBT is that a change in the structural stiffness due to damage results in the change of modal parameters i.e. natural frequencies, damping ratios, mode shapes and curvatures. These techniques can therefore be used to detect internal structural damage such as damaged shear connectors.