Structural Health

Monitoring

Md. Abul Kalam Tutul

Dept. Of Civil Engineering
Mymensingh Engineering College.
Structural Health
Monitoring
 .

 Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Structural health monitoring (SHM)
3. Statistical pattern recognition
4. Health assessment of engineered structures of bridges, buildings and other
related infrastructures
5. Operational evaluation
6. Data acquisition, normalization and cleansing
7. Feature extraction and data Compression
8. Statistical model development
9. Fundamental axioms
10.Components
11.Main functions of structural health monitoring
12.Objective of Structural Health Monitoring
13.Steps of Structural Health Monitoring
14.SHM Involves
15.Structural Monitoring Challenges
16.Some Barriers in SHM up today
17.SHM is the imitation of the human nervous System
18.SHM in aircraft maintenance
19.SHM technology helps in
20.Damage Identification
21.Test Structure
22.SHM by Structural System Identification
23.How to Do SHM in practice?
24.Vibration Based SHM: Sensors
25.Vibration Based SHM: Model-Based Techniques
26.Vibration Based SHM: Uncertainties
27.Wireless sensor role in SHM
28.SHM Current Uses
29.Issues with SHM Implementation
30.Limitation of traditional methods
31.Vision of the Future
32.Examples
33.Other large examples
34.Conclusions
35.References
Abstract
The process of implementing a damage identification strategy for aerospace, civil and
mechanical engineering infrastructure is referred to as structural health monitoring (SHM).
Here, damage is defined as changes to the material and/or geometric properties of these
systems, including changes to the boundary conditions and system connectivity, which
adversely affect the system's performance. A wide variety of highly effective local non-
destructive evaluation tools are available for such monitoring. However, the majority of SHM
research conducted over the last 30 years has attempted to identify damage in structures on a
more global basis. The past 10 years have seen a rapid increase in the amount of research
related to SHM as quantified by the significant escalation in papers published on this subject.
The increased interest in SHM and its associated potential for significant life-safety and
economic benefits has motivated the need for this theme issue.

This introduction begins with a brief history of SHM technology development. Recent research
has begun to recognize that the SHM problem is fundamentally one of the statistical pattern
recognition (SPR) and a paradigm to address such a problem is described in detail herein as it
forms the basis for organization of this theme issue. In the process of providing the historical
overview and summarizing the SPR paradigm, the subsequent articles in this theme issue are
cited in an effort to show how they fit into this overview of SHM. In conclusion, technical
challenges that must be addressed if SHM is to gain wider application are discussed in a general
manner.

Structural health monitoring

Introduction
Qualitative and non-continuous methods have long been used to evaluate structures for their
capacity to serve their intended purpose. Since the beginning of the 19th century, railroad
wheel-tappers have used the sound of a hammer striking the train wheel to evaluate if damage
was present.[2] In rotating machinery, vibration monitoring has been used for decades as a
performance evaluation technique.[1] Two techniques in the field of SHM are wave
propagation based techniques Raghavan and Cesnik[3] and vibration based
techniques.[4][5][6] Broadly the literature for vibration based SHM can be divided into two
aspects, the first wherein models are proposed for the damage to determine the dynamic
characteristics, also known as the direct problem, for example refer, Unified Framework[7] and
the second, wherein the dynamic characteristics are used to determine damage characteristics,
also known as the inverse problem, for example refer.[8] In the last ten to fifteen years, SHM
technologies have emerged creating an exciting new field within various branches of
engineering. Academic conferences and scientific journals have been established during this
time that specifically focus on SHM.[2] These technologies are currently becoming
increasingly common.
Structural health monitoring (SHM)
It refers to the process of implementing a damage detection and characterization strategy for
engineering structures. Here damage is defined as changes to the material and/or geometric
properties of a structural system, including changes to the boundary conditions and system
connectivity, which adversely affect the system's performance. The SHM process involves the
observation of a system over time using periodically sampled dynamic response measurements
from an array of sensors, the extraction of damage sensitive features from these measurements,
and the statistical analysis of these features to determine the current state of system health. For
long term SHM, the output of this process is periodically updated information regarding the
ability of the structure to perform its intended function in light of the inevitable aging and
degradation resulting from operational environments. After extreme events, such as
earthquakes or blast loading, SHM is used for rapid condition screening and aims to provide,
in near real time, reliable
information regarding the integrity of the structure.[1]

Statistical pattern recognition

The SHM problem can be addressed in the context of a statistical pattern recognition
paradigm.[9][10] This paradigm can be broken down into four parts: (1) Operational
Evaluation, (2) Data Acquisition and Cleansing, (3) Feature Extraction and Data Compression,
and (4) Statistical Model Development for Feature Discrimination. When one attempts to apply
this paradigm to data from real world structures, it quickly becomes apparent that the ability to
cleanse, compress, normalize and fuse data to account for operational and environmental
variability is a key implementation issue when addressing Parts 2-4 of this paradigm. These
processes can be implemented through hardware or software and, in general, some combination
of these two approaches will be used.

Health assessment of engineered structures

of bridges, buildings and other related
infrastructures
Commonly known as Structural Health Assessment (SHA) or SHM, this concept is widely
applied to various forms of infrastructures, especially as countries all over the world enter into
an even greater period of construction of various infrastructures ranging from bridges to
skyscrapers. Especially so when damages to structures are concerned, it is important to note
that there are stages of increasing difficulty that require the knowledge of previous stages,
namely:
1. Detecting the existence of the damage on the structure
2. Locating the damage
3. Identifying the types of damage
4. Quantifying the severity of the damage. It is necessary to employ signal processing and statistical
classification to convert sensor data on the infrastructural health status into damage info for
assessment.
Operational evaluation
Operational evaluation attempts to answer four questions regarding the implementation of a
damage identification capability:
i) What are the life-safety and/or economic justification for performing the SHM?
ii) How is damage defined for the system being investigated and, for multiple damage
possibilities, which cases are of the most concern?
iii) What are the conditions, both operational and environmental, under which the system to be
monitored functions?
iv) What are the limitations on acquiring data in the operational environment? Operational
evaluation begins to set the limitations on what will be monitored and how the monitoring will
be accomplished. This evaluation starts to tailor the damage identification process to features
that are unique to the system being monitored and tries to take advantage of unique features of
the damage that is to be detected.

Data acquisition, normalization and

cleansing
The data acquisition portion of the SHM process involves selecting the excitation methods, the
sensor types, number and locations, and the data acquisition/storage/transmittal hardware.
Again, this process will be application specific. Economic considerations will play a major role
in making these decisions. The intervals at which data should be collected is another
consideration that must be addressed. Because data can be measured under varying conditions,
the ability to normalize the data becomes very important to the damage identification process.
As it applies to SHM, data normalization is the process of separating changes in sensor reading
caused by damage from those caused by varying operational and environmental conditions.
One of the most common procedures is to normalize the measured responses by the measured
inputs. When environmental or operational variability is an issue, the need can arise to
normalize the data in some temporal fashion to facilitate the comparison of data measured at
similar times of an environmental or operational cycle. Sources of variability in the data
acquisition process and with the system being monitored need to be identified and minimized
to the extent possible. In general, not all sources of variability can be eliminated. Therefore, it
is necessary to make the appropriate measurements such that these sources can be statistically
quantified. Variability can arise from changing environmental and test conditions, changes in
the data reduction process, and unit-to-unit inconsistencies. Data cleansing is the process of
selectively choosing data to pass on to or reject from the feature selection process. The data
cleansing process is usually based on knowledge gained by individuals directly involved with
the data acquisition. As an example, an inspection of the test setup may reveal that a sensor
was be eliminated. Therefore, it is necessary to make the appropriate measurements such that
these sources can be statistically quantified. Variability can arise from changing environmental
and test conditions, changes in the data reduction process, and unit-to-unit inconsistencies. Data
cleansing is the process of selectively choosing data to pass on to or reject from the feature
selection process. The data cleansing process is usually based on knowledge gained by
individuals directly involved with the data acquisition. As an example, an inspection of the test
setup may reveal that a sensor was that can improve the data acquisition process.

Feature extraction and data compression

The area of the SHM process that receives the most attention in the technical literature is the
identification of data features that allows one to distinguish between the undamaged and
damaged structure. Inherent in this feature selection process is the condensation of the data.
The best features for damage identification are, again, application specific. One of the most
common feature extraction methods is based on correlating measured system response
quantities, such a vibration amplitude or frequency, with the first-hand observations of the
degrading system. Another method of developing features for damage identification is to apply
engineered flaws, similar to ones expected in actual operating conditions, to systems and
develop an initial understanding of the parameters that are sensitive to the expected damage.
The flawed system can also be used to validate that the diagnostic measurements are sensitive
enough to distinguish between features identified from the undamaged and damaged system.
The use of analytical tools such as experimentally-validated finite element models can be a
great asset in this process. In many cases the analytical tools are used to perform numerical
experiments where the flaws are introduced through computer simulation. Damage
accumulation testing, during which significant structural components of the system under study
are degraded by subjecting them to realistic loading conditions, can also be used to identify
appropriate features. This process may involve induced-damage testing, fatigue testing,
corrosion growth, or temperature cycling to accumulate certain types of damage in an
accelerated fashion. Insight into the appropriate features can be gained from several types of
analytical and experimental studies as described above and is usually the result of information
obtained from some combination of these studies. The operational implementation and
diagnostic measurement technologies needed to perform SHM produce more data than
traditional uses of structural dynamics information. A condensation of the data is advantageous
and necessary when comparisons of many feature sets obtained over the lifetime of the
structure are envisioned. Also, because data will be acquired from a structure over an extended
period of time and in an operational environment, robust data reduction techniques must be
developed to retain feature sensitivity to the structural changes of interest in the presence of
environmental and operational variability. To further aid in the extraction and recording of
quality data needed to perform SHM, the statistical significance of the features should be
characterized and used in the condensation process.

Statistical model development

The portion of the SHM process that has received the least attention in the technical literature
is the development of statistical models for discrimination between features from the
undamaged and damaged structures. Statistical model development is concerned with the
implementation of the algorithms that operate on the extracted features to quantify the damage
state of the structure. The algorithms used in statistical model development usually fall into
three categories. When data are available from both the undamaged and damaged structure, the
statistical pattern recognition algorithms fall into the general classification referred to as
supervised learning. Group classification and regression analysis are categories of supervised
learning algorithms. Unsupervised learning refers to algorithms that are applied to data not
containing examples from the damaged structure. Outlier or novelty detection is the primary
class of algorithms applied in unsupervised learning applications. All of the algorithms analyze
statistical distributions of the measured or derived features to enhance the damage
identification process.
Fundamental axioms
Based on the extensive literature that has developed on SHM over the last 20 years, it can be
argued that this field has matured to the point where several fundamental axioms, or general
principles, have emerged.[11] The axioms are listed as follows:
 Axiom I: All materials have inherent flaws or defects;
 Axiom II: The assessment of damage requires a comparison between two system states;
 Axiom III: Identifying the existence and location of damage can be done in an
unsupervised learning mode, but identifying the type of damage present and the damage
severity can generally only be done in a supervised learning mode;
 Axiom IV: Sensors cannot measure damage. Feature extraction through signal
processing and statistical classification is necessary to convert sensor data into damage
information;
 Axiom IV: Without intelligent feature extraction, the more sensitive a measurement is
to damage, the more sensitive it is to changing operational and environmental
conditions;
 Axiom V: The length- and time-scales associated with damage initiation and evolution
dictate the required properties of the SHM sensing system;
 Axiom VI: There is a trade-off between the sensitivity to damage of an algorithm and
its noise rejection capability;
 Axiom VII: The size of damage that can be detected from changes in system dynamics
is inversely proportional to the frequency range of excitation.

Components
SHM System's elements include:
 Structure
 Sensors
 Data acquisition systems
 Data transfer and storage mechanism
 Data management
 Data interpretation and diagnosis:
1. System Identification
2. Structural model update
3. Structural condition assessment
4. Prediction of remaining service life
An example of this technology is embedding sensors in structures like bridges and aircraft.
These sensors provide real time monitoring of various structural changes like stress and strain.
In the case of civil engineering structures, the data provided by the sensors is usually
transmitted to a remote data acquisition centers. With the aid of modern technology, real time
control of structures (Active Structural Control) based on the information of sensors is possible.

Main functions of structural health

monitoring
  Monitor and assess load conditions
 Examine current design philosophy
 Verify new analytical methods and computer simulations
 Assess structural performance and detect damage
 Facilitate inspection and maintenance works
 Help authority to make quick and right decision in emergency cases
 Ultimate goal is to ensure serviceability, safety, and sustainability

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Objective of Structural Health Monitoring

 Performance enhancement of an existing structure

 Monitoring of structures affected by external factors

 Feedback loop to improve future design based on experience

 Assessment of post-earthquake structural integrity

 Decline in construction and growth in maintenance needs

 The move towards performance-based design philosophy

Steps of Structural Health Monitoring

 Determination of damage existence
 Determination of damage’s geometric location
 Quantification of damage severity
 Prediction of remaining life of the structure

SHM Involves
 Health monitoring
 Operational Evaluation
 Data Feature Extraction
 Statistical Models Development

Structural Monitoring Challenges

 Infrastructure is expected to provide:
 reliable service for long periods of time,
 Undergoing major technology changes,
 spanning several generations and experiencing dramatic evolutions
 Develop Wireless Sensor Networks
  Reliable
 Energy aware
 Smart

 Develop Design-to-service Solutions

 Efficient Monitoring
 Digital Signal
 Processing strategies
 Evaluation Criteria
 Knowledge bases

 Develop Smart Control Units

 Real-time Feedback
 Centralized (or not)

Some Barriers in SHM up today

 Conventional cables
 High installation costs
 Vulnerable to ambient signal noise corruption
 Vulnerable to earthquake conditions
 Size and complexity of large structures require a large number of sensing points to be
installed

SHM is the imitation of the human

nervous
System
Sensor Net-work
Diagnosis: subsystem deals with monitoring of the entire structure under inspection.
 It has an underlying wired/ wireless network of sensors and a variety of sensing
mechanisms need to be adopted for different sections of aircraft.
 Periodic measurements are tapped from these in-situ sensors either through wired or
wireless media into a centralized analysis station in the SHM system.
Prognosis: subsystem takes the periodic inspection data from diagnosis subsystem to
analyze and estimate various possible internal and external damages that might have occurred
in the structure.
 The estimated damage characteristics are used in the damage evolution models to
estimate the remaining life of the structure as well as to find a necessity to trigger
maintenance.

Life Extension & Predictive Maintenance:

 The damage evolution models are effectively combined with probability of detection
(POD) models for structural integrity assessment and remaining life assessment.
 Cost-benefit analysis is performed to arrive at a tradeoff between the safety
allowance and maintenance costs to be incurred while triggering maintenance in the
given conditions
 The Three key subsystems of SHM

SHM in aircraft maintenance

 Due to various stress conditions during the flight, aircraft structures develop various
kinds of defects which include stress corrosion, cracks, accidental damage, impact
damage, delamination’s, deboning’s, water ingress, damage due to loads/strain.
 A thorough inspection schedule is instructed by the aircraft manufacturer, which
include various types of checks as shown in Figure below.
 The current state of the art in the schedule-based inspection and maintenance is to
conduct time-based localized inspection of few selected parts of the structure. Hence,
at any given point of time, it is difficult to comprehensively understand the structure’s
health in totality.
Aircraft Maintenance checks (Periodic Inspection)
 Schedule based maintenance works well during designed service life. However, over
time, the focus shifts towards life extension i.e. need to use aircraft longer than planned
or to use it for different missions than designed.

 As Aging aircrafts continue in service, they result in increased inspection time,

increased operations and maintenance costs and decreased availability, due to higher
risk of hazard.

 Such high risk of hazard and maintenance costs can be minimized by employing a
continuous online monitoring technique which triggers the maintenance schedule as
and when required.

 SHM enables condition based maintenance with a capability to initiate inspection

requirements not only based on the scheduled intervals, but also on actual wear
indicators exhibited by the equipment at that given point of time.
 Issues Related to the Aging Infrastructure

SHM technology helps in

 Increased availability of the aircraft
 Effective assessment of actual damage events
 Reduced costs of life-cycle and total ownership
 Reduced logistics
 Increased safety and reliability
Moving beyond preventive maintenance into predictive maintenance, in-situ
Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) can provide
 Long-term cost savings and
 Extended fleet life.
Thus, SHM will enable new maintenance concepts.

Damage Identification
 Type of damages
– Ductile
Higher deformations
Better suited for SHCE applications
Baseline data essential

– Brittle
Sudden and little or no deformation until failure
Not suitable for SHCE application
– Progressive
 Higher deformations
SHCE may be useful
Higher probability of system failure

 Types of damage
Fatigue
Corrosion
Wear and Tear
Large Deformation (impact, delamination, etc…)

 Structural Identification
Understand structural behavior
Dynamic, static, or both (depends on loading)
Variety of methods (common sense to FEM/BEM)
Use measurements
Validate/calibrate structural model
Understand differences between actual and designed/modeled behavior

 Translate measurements to meaningful structural

parameters/states
 Modeling aspects depend on
Loading type
Measurements
Damage identification methods
Coarseness of the results
Use of model after the initial decision-making
 Complicated or fine models does not mean they are better
 Loading interactions and boundary conditions are very important

Test Structure
 Rte 2 over Hudson River Bridge
– Built in 1969
– Eight span steel stringer bridge
– 430-m long and 23-m wide
– Columns deteriorated (non-structural)
– Leaking joints
– Repaired (Patched) in 1991 and 1992
– Conventional repairs failed quickly. These were also expensive and require
considerable time, personnel, and money
 Repaired in July-August 1999
 FRP Wrapping in September 1999
 Done by maintenance personnel
 Instrumentation for monitoring
– Corrosion rate
 – Humidity
– Temperature
– Three locations for column based potential data

Results

SHM by Structural System Identification

Courtesy of Prof. E. Chatzi, ETH

How to Do SHM in practice?
 Visual Inspection
 Fully experience-based
 Subjective/Non-quantitative

 Non-Destructive Evaluation(NDE)
o Various technologies for different purposes
o Demands a high degree of expertise
o Time consuming and costly
o Usually requires a priori knowledge of the potentially damaged region
o Works only in accessible regions of the structure
o Interruption and downtime
o Labour intensive and risky

Fig: Visual Inspection

Dye Penetration Test Magnetic Particle Testing

Thermal Infrared Test

 Eddy Current Test Ultrasonic Test

Acoustic Emission Test Thermal Infrared Test

Fig: NDT
 Static-Based SHM
Based on the premise that damage will alter the static properties of the structure.
–e.g. displacements, rotations

 Drawback
 Considerable static deflection requires large amount of static force

 Vibration-Based SHM
 Based on the premise that damage will alter the dynamic
properties of the structure.
–e.g. structural response, frequencies, mode shapes, damping or modal strain energy change
 By measuring the structural response by means of sensors strategically placed
on the structure, and intelligently analyzing these measured responses, it is
possible to identify damage occurrence.
 It can be done either in modal domain or physical domain

Vibration Based SHM: Sensors

 Different forms of dynamic structural response
 Displacement, Velocity, Acceleration, Strain.
 Which ones to measure depends on monitoring conditions and objectives.
 Sensing technology: an ever emerging field of study

 Based on what to measure, different sensors available

o Laser Displacement Sensors(LDS)
o Velocity Transducers
o Seismometers
o Piezoelectric Accelerometers
o Strain Gauges

 Most of these sensors can be wirelessly connected

Collection of Sensory Information

 Load Cell (Force) LVDT (Displacement)

Accelerometer (Acceleration)
Strain Gauge (Strain)

Pros and cons of various types of sensors:

 Bandwidth
 displacement sensors capture low frequency modes
 acceleration sensors capture high frequency modes

 Global vs. Local

 strain gauges capture local dynamics better
  accelerometers/displacement sensors measure Global dynamics

Vibration Based SHM: Model-Based

Techniques
 Based on a model (e.g. F.E.) of the monitored structure.
 Optimization based methods:
 An initial model is updated using measured structural response. Also called
FE model updating

 Optimization algorithms are run by iteratively changing the values of

some structural properties (e.g. Young’s modulus), so that the FEM
parameters match measured parameters.

 Measured parameters: Measured responses or some parameters

obtained from measured responses (e.g. modal properties).

 Usually require repeatedly solving the forward problem.

 Alternatively, inverse problem solution approach:

 Identify modal parameters using some system identification method.
 Use identified modal parameters to obtain physical parameter (mass,
damping, stiffness) matrices.
 Does not require repeatedly solving the forward problem, but is more
complicated.

Pros
 Allow damage detection, as well as damage location and extent estimation. May even
be used to assess the damage type and to estimate the structure’s remaining life,
though research is still at its onset in this regard

Cons
 Require high user expertise
 Affected by modelling assumptions (e.g. boundary conditions, number of DOFs,
material properties, etc.)
 Often too many unknowns
 Usually computationally expensive
Vibration Based SHM: Uncertainties
Many sources of uncertainty in the different stages of
SHM:
During data acquisition:
 Measurement noise,
 Environmental effects (different temperature, humidity levels),
 Unknown and non-stationary inputs (traffic, wind, earthquake; may excite different
frequency regions),
 Missing data (not every point on the structure observed).

During feature extraction/modeling/identification:

 Modeling assumptions,
 Errors associated with any numerical method,
 Non-unique identification (many models may fit the measured data equally well).

Wireless sensor role in SHM

 The SHM system based on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) has shown considerable
promise.
 It has several advantages over most traditional SHM systems:
1. Low production and maintenance cost.
2. Fast installation
3. Reprogrammable software and convenient reconfiguration.
 Using WSN, a dense deployment of measurement points in a SHM system is possible,
which helps to refine the damage detection results
1. On-board microprocessor
2. Sensing capability
3. Wireless communication
4. Battery powered
5. low cost Prototype by Lynch U3
(2002) (2002)

BTnode rev3 Berkeley

(2004) Mote

iMote2
(2004)
Fig: Wireless Sensors

Despite the potentiality offered by WS, some hardware limitations needs to be addressed when
pursuing real SHM implementations using wireless sensors. Some of these hardware
limitations are associated to:
 Wireless communication
 Time synchronization among sensors
 Reduced processing and memory capacity
 Power management

SHM Current Uses

 Verification/validation of
– Advanced technologies
– Innovative materials
– Analytical methods
– Guidelines and design procedures
 Augment bridge inspections by making inspection more
quantitative
 Improve load ratings and remove postings
Issues with SHM Implementation
 Most current methods meant for local NDT
 Increased Cost
– Initial, maintenance, analysis
 Structural environment changes
– Slow: Corrosion, general degradation, etc.
– Sudden: Impact, blast, etc.
– Overloads etc., due to change in use
 Long break-even period
 Project vs. network

Limitation of traditional methods

 Dense arrays of sensor are required to effectively monitor structures
 Wired monitoring systems are expensive, with much of the cost derived from cabling
and installation
 Centralized data collection is not challenging for monitoring large civil infrastructure

Vision of the Future

“relying on and leveraging real-time access to living databases, sensors, diagnostic tools, and
other advanced technologic to ensure informed decision are made’’
Wireless Smart Sensors will act as the fundamental building block to
realize this vision of the future
 Low costs allow for dense deployment as needed
 Modularity provides inherent flexibility for use in both permanent and temporary
applications
 Fig: Future of SHM

Examples
Bridges in Hong Kong
The Wind and Structural Health Monitoring System (WASHMS) is a sophisticated bridge
monitoring system, costing US$1.3 million, used by the Hong Kong Highways Department to
ensure road user comfort and safety of the Tsing Ma, Ting Kau, Kap Shui Mun and Stonecutters
bridges.[12]

In order to oversee the integrity, durability and reliability of the bridges, WASHMS has four
different levels of operation: sensory systems, data acquisition systems, local centralized
computer systems and global central computer system.

The sensory system consists of approximately 900 sensors and their relevant interfacing units.
With more than 350 sensors on the Tsing Ma Bridge, 350 on Ting Kau and 200 on Kap Shui
Mun, the structural behavior of the bridges is measured 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The sensors include accelerometers, strain gauges, displacement transducers level sensing
stations, anemometers, temperature sensors and dynamic weight in- motion sensors. They
measure everything from tarmac temperature and strains in structural members to wind speed
and the deflection and rotation of the kilometers of cables and any movement of the bridge
decks and towers. These sensors are the early warning system for the bridges, providing the
essential information that help the Highways Department to accurately monitor the general
health conditions of the bridges.

The structures have been built to withstand up to a one-minute mean wind speed of 95 meters
per second. In 1997, when Hong Kong had a direct hit from Typhoon Victor, wind speeds of
110 to 120 kilometers per hour were recorded. However, the highest wind speed on record
occurred during Typhoon Wanda in 1962 when a 3-second gust wind speed was recorded at
78.8 meters per second, 284 kilometers per hour.

The information from these hundreds of different sensors is transmitted to the data acquisition
outstation units. There are three data acquisition outstation units on Tsing Ma Bridge, three on
Ting Kau and two on the Kap Shui Mun.

The computing powerhouse for these systems is in the administrative building used by the
Highways Department in Tsing Yi. The local central computer system provides data collection
control, post processing, transmission and storage. The global system is used for data
acquisition and analysis, assessing the physical conditions and structural functions of the
bridges and for integration and manipulation of the data acquisition, analysis and assessing
processes.
 Monitoring Hong Kong's Bridges Real-Time Kinematic Spans The Gap

Other large examples

The following projects are currently known as some of the biggest on-going bridge monitoring

 The Rio–Antirrio bridge, Greece: has more than 100 sensors monitoring the structure
and the traffic in real time.
 Millau Viaduc, France: has one of the largest systems with fiber optics in the world
which is considered state of the art.
 The Huey P Long bridge, USA: has over 800 static and dynamic strain gauges designed
to measure axial and bending load effects.
 The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, Turkey: also known as the Second Bosphorus Bridge.
It has been monitored using an innovative wireless sensor network with normal traffic
condition.
 Masjid al-Haram#Current expansion project, Mecca, Saudi Arabia : has more than 600
sensors ( Concrete pressure cell, Embedment type strain gauge, Sister bar strain gauge,
etc.) installed at foundation and concrete columns. This project is under construction.
 The Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia is currently implementing a monitoring
system involving over 2,400 sensors. Asset managers and bridge inspectors have
mobile and web browser decision support tools based on analysis of sensor data.
 The Queensferry Crossing, currently under construction across the Firth of Forth, will
have a monitoring system including more than 2,000 sensors upon its completion. Asset
managers will have access to data for all sensors from a web based data management
interface, including automated data analysis.

For bridges
Health monitoring of large bridges can be performed by simultaneous measurement of loads
on the bridge and effects of these loads. It typically includes monitoring of:
 Wind and weather
 Traffic
 Prestressing and stay cables
 Deck
  Pylons
 Ground
Provided with this knowledge, the engineer can:
 Estimate the loads and their effects
 Estimate the state of fatigue or other limit state
 Forecast the probable evolution of the bridge's health

The state of Oregon in the United States, Department of Transportation Bridge Engineering
Department has developed and implemented a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) program
as referenced in this technical paper by Steven Lovejoy, Senior Engineer. [13]
References are available that provide an introduction to the application of fiber optic sensors
to Structural Health Monitoring on bridges. [14]

CONCLUSIONS
Health monitoring of structures is becoming more and more important: its ultimate target is the
ability to monitor the structure throughout its working life in order to reduce maintenance
requirements and subsequent downtime. Currently, visual inspection is the standard method
used for health assessment of structures, along with non-destructive evaluation techniques.
However, most of these techniques require a lot of manual work and a significant downtime.
Thus, currently an increasing interest in SHM is rising, because it can provide cost savings by
reducing the number of manual inspections (Achenbach, 2007). MEMS and wireless sensing
are becoming desirable features in SHM systems and there has been a large development of
new sensors during the last years. However, optimized and autonomous SHM systems are still
not so spread. In this paper, after a review of some sample cases worldwide, some aspects
related to the implementation of an integrated SHM system covering several structures on a
wide territory has been analyzed. An effective Structural Health Monitoring system has been
designed based on integration of several sensors and hardware components in a modular
architecture. Even if the advances in the field of Information Technology and communications
assure data transmission also in critical conditions, it is worth noting that availability of
procedures able to reduce the transmission data volumes is a key aspect for reliability and
sustainability of infrastructure, in particular when several constructions are monitored at the
same time by a single master node. The distributed structure of the system, based on local and
master nodes, and the availability of automated modal parameters identification and tracking
procedures, will ensure a significant reduction of the volume of data to be transmitted, so
increasing the performance and the reliability of the system. It will be based on integration of
several procedures in a home-made software developed in Lab View environment and will be
an interest benchmark also for early warning applications.

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Further reading

Balageas D. ,Fritzen C-P. and Güemes A. Structural Health Monitoring. ISBN 1-905209-01-0. Link

Bonessio N., Lomiento G., Benzoni G. (2012). "Damage identification procedure for seismically isolated bridges".
Structural Control and Health Monitoring, Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 565–578. doi:10.1002/stc.448.

Ditommaso R., Mucciarelli M. and Ponzo F. C. (2012). ANALYSIS OF NONSTATIONARY STRUCTURAL

SYSTEMS BY USING A BAND-VARIABLE FILTER.Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering.
doi:10.1007/s10518-012-9338-y.

Ditommaso R., Mucciarelli M., Parolai S. and Picozzi M. (2012). Monitoring the structural dynamic response of
a masonry tower: comparing classical and time-frequency analyses. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering.
doi:10.1007/s10518-012-9347-x.

Ditommaso R., Parolai S., Mucciarelli M., Eggert S., Sobiesiak M. and Zschau J. (2010). Monitoring the response
and the back-radiated energy of a building subjected to ambient vibration and impulsive action: the Falkenhof
Tower (Potsdam, Germany). Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering. Volume 8, Number 3. doi:10.1007/s10518-009-
9151-4. [1]

Rocco Ditommaso, Marco Vona, Marco Mucciarelli, Angelo Masi (2010). Identification of building rotational
modes using an ambient vibration technique. 14th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Proceedings
Volume. Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia. August 30 – September 3, 2010.

Rocco Ditommaso, Marco Mucciarelli, Felice C. Ponzo (2010). S-Transform based filter applied to the analysis
of non-linear dynamic behaviour of soil and buildings. 14th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering.
Proceedings Volume. Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia. August 30 – September 3, 2010.
(http://roccoditommaso.xoom.it).

Glisic B. and Inaudi D. (2008). Fibre Optic Methods for Structural Health Monitoring. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-
06142-8.

Guzman E. (2014) A Novel Structural Health Monitoring Method for Full-Scale CFRP Structures. EPFL PhD
thesis doi:10.5075/epfl-thesis-6422.

Guzman E., Cugnoni J. and Gmür T. (2015) Monitoring of composite structures using a network of integrated
PVDF film transducers Smart Materials and Structures vol. 24, num. 5, p. 055017 doi:10.1088/0964-
1726/24/5/055017.

Guzman E., Cugnoni J. and Gmür T. (2014) A new Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system using integrated
polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) transducer networks. Proceedings of the 65th International Astronautical
Congress (IAC2014). Toronto, Canada, September 29 – October 3, 2014. [2]

Huston, Dryver (2010). Structural Sensing, Health Monitoring, and Performance Evaluation. Taylor & Francis.
ISBN 978-0-7503-0919-6.

Liu Y., Mohanty S., and Chattopadhyay A., "Condition Based Structural Health Monitoring and Prognosis of
Composite Structures under Uniaxial and Biaxial Loading, 2010, Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation, Volume
29, Number 3, 181-188

Liu Y., Yekani Fard, M., Chattopadhyay A., and Doyle, D., "Damage assessment of CFRP composites using time-
frequency approach," Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 397 – 413, 2012.

Liu Y., Kim S.B., Chattopadhyay A., and Doyle D., "Application of system identification techniques to health
monitoring of on-orbit satellite boom structures," Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol.48, No.4, pp. 589–598,
2011.

Mohanty S., Chattopadhyay A., Wei J. and Peralta, P., "Real time Damage State Estimation and Condition Based
Residual Useful Life Estimation of a Metallic Specimen under Biaxial Loading", 2009, Structural Durability &
Health Monitoring Journal, vol.5, no.1, pp. 33–55.

Mohanty S., Chattopadhyay A., Wei J. and Peralta, P., "Unsupervised Time-Series Damage State Estimation of
Complex Structure Using Ultrasound Broadband Based Active Sensing", 2010, Structural Durability & Health
Monitoring Journal, vol.130, no.1, pp. 101–124.

Mucciarelli M., Bianca M., Ditommaso R., Gallipoli M.R., Masi A., Milkereit C., Parolai S., Picozzi M. and Vona
M. (2011). FAR FIELD DAMAGE ON RC BUILDINGS: THE CASE STUDY OF NAVELLI DURING THE
L'AQUILA (ITALY) SEISMIC SEQUENCE, 2009. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering. doi:10.1007/s10518-
010-9201-y.

M. Picozzi, S. Parolai, M. Mucciarelli, C. Milkereit, D. Bindi, R. Ditommaso, M. Vona, M.R. Gallipoli, and J.
Zschau (2011). Interferometric Analysis of Strong Ground Motion for Structural Health Monitoring: The Example
of the L'Aquila, Italy, Seismic Sequence of 2009. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 101, No.
2, pp. 635–651, April 2011, doi:10.1785/0120100070.

Ooijevaar T.H., Vibration based structural health monitoring of composite skin-stiffener structures, PhD thesis,
2014.
Ooijevaar T.H., Rogge M.D., Loendersloot R., Warnet L., Akkerman R., Tinga T., Vibro-acoustic modulation-
based damage identification in a composite skin-stiffener structure, Structural Health Monitoring, 2016.

Ooijevaar T.H., Rogge M.D., Loendersloot R., Warnet L.L., Akkerman R., Tinga T., Nonlinear dynamic behavior
of an impact damaged composite skin-stiffener structure, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 353:243–258, 2015.

Ooijevaar T.H., Warnet L.L., Loendersloot R., Akkerman R., Tinga T., Impact damage identification in composite
skin-stiffener structures based on modal curvatures, Structural Control and Health Monitoring, 2015.

Ooijevaar T.H., Loendersloot R., Warnet L.L., de Boer A., Akkerman R., Vibration based structural health
monitoring of a composite T-beam, Composite Structures, 92(9):2007–2015, 2010.

Ponzo F. C., Ditommaso R., Auletta G., Mossucca A. (2010). A Fast Method for Structural Health Monitoring of
Italian Strategic Reinforced Concrete Buildings. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering. doi:10.1007/s10518-010-
9194-6. Volume 8, Number 6, Pages 1421-1434.

Picozzi M., Milkereit C., Zulfikar C., Fleming K., Ditommaso R., Erdik M., Zschau J., Fischer J., Safak E., Özel
O. and Apaydin N. (2010). Wireless technologies for the monitoring of strategic civil infrastructures: an ambient
vibration test on the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Suspension Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey. Bulletin of Earthquake
Engineering. Volume 8, Number 3. doi:10.1007/s10518-009-9132-7.

Ponzo F.C., Auletta G., Ditommaso R. & Mossucca A. (2010). A Simplified Method for a Fast Structural Health
Monitoring: methodology and preliminary numerical results. 14th European Conference on Earthquake
Engineering. Proceedings Volume. Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia. August 30 – September 3, 2010.

Menafro F.,(2015) Method for Prognostics of an Aircraft Structure Based on Structural Testing

Eftekhar Azam S. (2014). Online Damage Detection in Structural Systems. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-
02559-9. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-02559-9]

External links

NDT.net Open Access Database contains EWSHM proceedings and much more SHM articles

Engineering Institute, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nano-Engineering and Smart Structures Technologies (NESST) Laboratory, University of California, Davis

University of Siegen Germany

Laboratory for Intelligent Structural Technology, University of Michigan

Centre for Non-Destructive Evaluation IIT Madras,India

CIMSS at Virginia Tech

Catching Crumbling Infrastructure: Sensor Technology Provides New Opportunity

Adaptive Intelligent Materials and Systems (AIMS) Center, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA

Drexel Institute for Sustainable Infrastructures, Drexel University

PRODDIA - Structural Systems Health Management tool

SURFLAND Systemy Komputerowe SA - Structural Health Monitoring Systems, Poland, lang. PL

Osmos integrated safety for structures.

Iran Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (IRAN - SHMII)

International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (ISHMII)

Laboratory for the Concrete Technology and Structural Behaviour (LABEST)

Journals
SHM Proceedings (NDT.net)

Journal of Structural Health Monitoring (sagepub)

Journal of Intelligent Material Systems & Structures (sagepub)

Structural Durability & Health Monitoring (techscience)

Structural Control and Health Monitoring (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring (Springer)

Smart Materials and Structures (IOP)

Smart Materials Bulletin (science direct)