Author(s)

Shohel Rana¹, Md. Rifat Zaman^2*, Md. Ibrahim Islam Ifty², Seyedali Mirmotalebi^3*, Tahsin Tareque⁴

¹Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
²Department of Civil Engineering, Atish Dipankar University of Science & Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
³Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.
⁴Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, Texas, USA.

To prevent early bridge failures, effective Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is vital. Vibration-based damage assessment is a powerful tool in this regard, as it relies on changes in a structure’s dynamic characteristics as it degrades. By measuring the vibration response of a bridge due to passing vehicles, this approach can identify potential structural damage. This dissertation introduces a novel technique grounded in Vehicle-Bridge Interaction (VBI) to evaluate bridge health. It aims to detect damage by analyzing the response of passing vehicles, taking into account VBI. The theoretical foundation of this method begins with representing the bridge’s superstructure using a Finite Element Model and employing a half-car dynamic model to simulate the vehicle with suspension. Two sets of motion equations, one for the bridge and one for the vehicle are generated using the Finite Element Method, mode superposition, and D’Alembert’s principle. The combined dynamics are solved using the Newmark-beta method, accounting for road surface roughness. A new approach for damage identification based on the response of passing vehicles is proposed. The response is theoretically composed of vehicle frequency, bridge natural frequency, and a pseudo-frequency component related to vehicle speed. The Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) method is applied to decompose the signal into its constituent parts, and damage detection relies on the Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) corresponding to the vehicle speed component. This technique effectively identifies various damage scenarios considered in the study.

Structural Health Monitoring, Vibration-Based Damage Identification, Vehicle-Bridge Interaction, Finite Element Model, Empirical Mode Decomposition

Rana, S. , Zaman, M. , Ifty, M. , Mirmotalebi, S. and Tareque, T. (2023) Vehicle-Bridge Interaction Simulation and Damage Identification of a Bridge Using Responses Measured in a Passing Vehicle by Empirical Mode Decomposition Method. Open Journal of Civil Engineering, 13, 742-755. doi: 10.4236/ojce.2023.134049.