ABSTRACT
This paper presents the assessment of a damage identification procedure applied to a multi-span prestressed concrete bridge equipped with accelerometers. In addition, the central span is equipped with LVDT sensors recording local displacements from which two structural states of the bridge are defined. Using the acceleration measurements, the corresponding modal characteristics are determined from an output-only modal identification procedure including a clustering step to compute mean values of the identified mode shapes. Damage detection and localization is performed by combining the use of damage indicators and the updating of a simplified finite element model. The damage pattern obtained in the central span is consistent with the information available from the LVDT sensors. In the side spans, the evolution between the two structural states seems to correspond to an increase in stiffness. This point requires further investigation. Improvements to the present method, including a statistical analysis, are also being considered.
