Reliability and Safety of Suspension Bridge Cables Using Continuous Health Monitoring Data

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的，该奖项的研究目标是开发一种方法，用于使用安装在电缆内部的传感器进行实时测量，评估悬索桥电缆的可靠性和安全系数。如今，可以测量温度、相对湿度、pH值等环境参数的小型传感器，以及可以安装在数千根紧密压缩的钢丝中的小型传感器，正在进行测试，以应用于悬索桥电缆。 使用这些测量无论是从最初的建设或从最后的深入检查，拟议的方法将提供一个估计的当前电缆强度，因为它随着时间的推移，作为一个功能的环境条件。 通过观察强度如何随时间变化，可以估计电缆强度的劣化率，并将其外推用于未来强度变化的预测。这种演变预计将是一种不断恶化的演变。 拟议的方法将基于蒙特卡洛模拟为基础的方法，以考虑到所有的不确定性，在这个问题。 该方法将通过对单根桥索以及悬索桥缆索全尺寸模型的实验测试进行整合和验证。如果成功，拟议研究的结果将代表对当前不可靠（例如目视检查）和昂贵（例如解开和楔入整个缆索）的检查方法的显着改进。 这些结果将是重大利益的每一个悬索桥拥有机构，以评估安全性和改善这种结构的维护。 本科生和研究生以及高中学生和教师将参与不同层次的研究。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)The research objective of this award is to develop a methodology for reliability and safety factor assessment of suspension bridge cables over time using real-time measurements from sensors installed inside the cables. Today, small-scale sensors that can measure environmental parameters like temperature, relative humidity, pH, etc. and that can be fit inside thousands of tightly compacted steel wires are becoming available and are being tested for application in suspension bridge cables. Using these measurements either from the initial construction or from the last in-depth inspection, the proposed methodology will provide an estimate of the current cable strength as it evolves with time, as a function of the environmental conditions. By looking at how the strength changes with time, it will be possible to estimate the rate of deterioration of the cable strength and to extrapolate it for future prediction of the strength variation. This evolution in time is expected to be a deteriorating one. The proposed methodology will be based on a Monte Carlo simulation based approach to account for all the uncertainties involved in the problem. This methodology will be integrated and validated with experimental tests on single bridge wires as well as on a full scale model of a suspension bridge cable.If successful, the results of the proposed research will represent a dramatic improvement over the current inspection methods that are unreliable (e.g. visual inspection) and expensive (e.g. unwrapping and wedging the entire cable). These results will be of major interest to every suspension bridge owning agency to assess the safety and to improve the maintenance of such structures. Undergraduate and graduate students as well as high-school students and teachers will be involved at different levels of the research.