ABSTRACT
Conventional experiments in bridge engineering have been mostly of the nondestructive testing (NDT) type. NDT experiments are mostly local, both in time and space. They are very adapting in revealing accurate picture of the condition of a local part of the bridge at speci‘c time. Due to such limited scope of NDT, the value (or bene‘t-to-cost) of NDT experiments were not a major issue, since the objectives of the NDT experiments are usually well de‘ned, and the tools of executing such an experiment are well suited for obtaining the objectives of the experiments. The structural health monitoring (SHM) paradigm, which purport a bridge monitoring experimentation that is wider in both locale and time than the conventional NDT experimentation, have been gaining interest lately. The overall system of SHM/SHCE/IHCE is shown schematically in Figure 4.1. (Note that SHM is used in this chapter [and in most of this volume] in lieu of SHCE/IHCE without loss of generality.) SHM projects and experiments are demanding, as shown in Figure 4.2. Due to the larger space and time range of SHM experimentation, the optimum experiment parameters, such as number of sensors, type of sensor mix, type of data acquisition, labor costs, and the value of additional information from the experiment, needs to be carefully studied. Currently, there are no quantifying methods that help in designing an SHM experiment that studies and optimizes the overall value of such an experiment.
