Determination of reasonable finished state of self-anchored suspension bridges

A systematic and generic procedure for the determination of the reasonable finished state of self-anchored suspension bridges is proposed, the realization of which is mainly through adjustment of the hanger tensions. The initial hanger tensions are first obtained through an iterative analysis by combining the girder-tower-only finite element(FE) model with the analytical program for shape finding of the spatial cable system. These initial hanger tensions, together with the corresponding cable coordinates and internal forces, are then included into the FE model of the total bridge system, the nonlinear analysis of which involves the optimization technique. Calculations are repeated until the optimization algorithm converges to the most optimal hanger tensions(i.e. the desired reasonable finished bridge state). The "temperature rigid arm" is introduced to offset the unavoidable initial deformations of the girder and tower, which are due to the huge axial forces originated from the main cable. Moreover, by changing the stiffness coefficient K in the girder-tower-only FE model, the stiffness proportion of the main girder, the tower or the cable subsystem in the whole structural system could be adjusted according to the design intentions. The effectiveness of the proposed method is examined and demonstrated by one simple tutorial example and one self-anchored suspension bridge.

Outlier Detection and Forecasting for Bridge Health Monitoring Based on Time Series Intervention Analysis

The method of time series analysis,applied by establishing appropriate mathematical models for bridge health monitoring data and making forecasts of structural future behavior,stands out as a novel and viable research direction for bridge state assessment.However,outliers inevitably exist in the monitoring data due to various interventions,which reduce the precision of model fitting and affect the forecasting results.Therefore,the identification of outliers is crucial for the accurate interpretation of the monitoring data.In this study,a time series model combined with outlier information for bridge health monitoring is established using intervention analysis theory,and the forecasting of the structural responses is carried out.There are three techniques that we focus on:(1)the modeling of seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average(SARIMA)model;(2)the methodology for outlier identification and amendment under the circumstances that the occurrence time and type of outliers are known and unknown;(3)forecasting of the model with outlier effects.The method was tested with a case study using monitoring data on a real bridge.The establishment of the original SARIMA model without considering outliers is first discussed,including the stationarity,order determination,parameter estimation and diagnostic checking of the model.Then the time-by-time iterative procedure for outlier detection,which is implemented by appropriate test statistics of the residuals,is performed.The SARIMA-outlier model is subsequently built.Finally,a comparative analysis of the forecasting performance between the original model and SARIMA-outlier model is carried out.The results demonstrate that proper time series models are effective in mining the characteristic law of bridge monitoring data.When the influence of outliers is taken into account,the fitted precision of the model is significantly improved and the accuracy and the reliability of the forecast are strengthened.

Survival Analysis Using Cox Proportional Hazards Regression for Pile Bridge Piles Under Wet Service Conditions

This paper studies the deterioration of bridge substructures utilizing the Long-Term Bridge Performance(LTBP)Program InfoBridge^(TM)and develops a survival model using Cox proportional hazards regression.The survival anal­ysis is based on the National Bridge Inventory(NBI)dataset.The study calculates the survival rate of reinforced and prestressed concrete piles on bridges under marine conditions over a 29-year span(from 1992 to 2020).The state of Maryland is the primary focus of this study,with data from three neighboring regions,the District of Columbia,Vir­ginia,and Delaware to expand the sample size.The data obtained from the National Bridge Inventory are condensed and filtered to acquire the most relevant information for model development.The Cox proportional hazards regres­sion is applied to the condensed NBI data with six parameters:Age,ADT,ADTT,number of spans,span length,and structural length.Two survival models are generated for the bridge substructures:Reinforced and prestressed concrete piles in Maryland and reinforced and prestressed concrete piles in wet service conditions in the District of Columbia,Maryland,Delaware,and Virginia.Results from the Cox proportional hazards regression are used to construct Markov chains to demonstrate the sequence of the deterioration of bridge substructures.The Markov chains can be used as a tool to assist in the prediction and decision-making for repair,rehabilitation,and replacement of bridge piles.Based on the numerical model,the Pile Assessment Matrix Program(PAM)is developed to facilitate the assessment and main­tenance of current bridge structures.The program integrates the NBI database with the inspection and research reports from various states’department of transportation,to serve as a tool for condition state simulation based on mainte­nance or rehabilitation strategies.