Structural health monitoring and its remedies

Abstract

Over the last 50 years, a number of catastrophic bridge failures have called attention to the disrepair of
national infrastructure systems and the need for structural health monitoring. For example, the I-35W Bridge in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, catastrophically failed on August 1, 2007 without warning. In recent years, the bridge was
rated as “structurally deficient” after annual inspections revealed corrosion, poor welding details, fatigue cracking in
steel members and dysfunctional bearings considering the catastrophe of the I-35W Mississippi River. While no
conclusions can yet be drawn as to the cause of the bridge’s catastrophic failure. it is critical to implement a system to
monitor the health of bridges and report when and where maintenance operations are needed. Therefore, it is important
to have a systematic approach to monitor the health of a bridge. Bridge Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has rapidly
become one of the main interests in civil engineering field. Inexpensive and efficient SHM method utilizing.