Dynamic Assessment of Shear Connectors in Composite Bridges with Ambient Vibration Measurements

Shear connectors are normally used in composite bridges, such as slab-ongirder structures, to link the slab and girder together. Damage of shear connectors will result in shear slippage between slab and girder, which significantly reduces the load carrying capacity of the bridge. Routine visual insp...

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Main Authors: Li, Jun, Hao, Hong, Zhu, H.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Multi-Science Publishing 2014
Online Access:http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE140101741
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/49604
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author Li, Jun
Hao, Hong
Zhu, H.
author_facet Li, Jun
Hao, Hong
Zhu, H.
author_sort Li, Jun
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Shear connectors are normally used in composite bridges, such as slab-ongirder structures, to link the slab and girder together. Damage of shear connectors will result in shear slippage between slab and girder, which significantly reduces the load carrying capacity of the bridge. Routine visual inspection is not able to detect conditions of shear connectors because they are buried inside the structure. This paper proposes a dynamic damage detection approach based on wavelet packet energy of cross-correlation functions from ambient vibration measurements to identify the damage of shear connectors in slab-on-girder bridges. Measured acceleration responses on the slab and corresponding girder locations under ambient vibrations are used to compute the cross-correlation functions. Wavelet packet decompositions of cross-correlation functions from the undamaged and damaged structures are performed and the percentage of wavelet packet energy in selected frequency bandwidths to the total wavelet packet energy is used to calculate the damage index.Numerical and experimental studies on a composite bridge with a concrete slab supported by two steel girders are conducted to validate the proposed approach and investigate its performance and robustness with noisy measured responses. It is demonstrated that the introduced damage of shear connectors can be identified accurately and efficiently.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2014
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-496042024-04-11T03:42:29Z Dynamic Assessment of Shear Connectors in Composite Bridges with Ambient Vibration Measurements Li, Jun Hao, Hong Zhu, H. Shear connectors are normally used in composite bridges, such as slab-ongirder structures, to link the slab and girder together. Damage of shear connectors will result in shear slippage between slab and girder, which significantly reduces the load carrying capacity of the bridge. Routine visual inspection is not able to detect conditions of shear connectors because they are buried inside the structure. This paper proposes a dynamic damage detection approach based on wavelet packet energy of cross-correlation functions from ambient vibration measurements to identify the damage of shear connectors in slab-on-girder bridges. Measured acceleration responses on the slab and corresponding girder locations under ambient vibrations are used to compute the cross-correlation functions. Wavelet packet decompositions of cross-correlation functions from the undamaged and damaged structures are performed and the percentage of wavelet packet energy in selected frequency bandwidths to the total wavelet packet energy is used to calculate the damage index.Numerical and experimental studies on a composite bridge with a concrete slab supported by two steel girders are conducted to validate the proposed approach and investigate its performance and robustness with noisy measured responses. It is demonstrated that the introduced damage of shear connectors can be identified accurately and efficiently. 2014 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/49604 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE140101741 Multi-Science Publishing fulltext
spellingShingle Li, Jun
Hao, Hong
Zhu, H.
Dynamic Assessment of Shear Connectors in Composite Bridges with Ambient Vibration Measurements
title Dynamic Assessment of Shear Connectors in Composite Bridges with Ambient Vibration Measurements
title_full Dynamic Assessment of Shear Connectors in Composite Bridges with Ambient Vibration Measurements
title_fullStr Dynamic Assessment of Shear Connectors in Composite Bridges with Ambient Vibration Measurements
title_full_unstemmed Dynamic Assessment of Shear Connectors in Composite Bridges with Ambient Vibration Measurements
title_short Dynamic Assessment of Shear Connectors in Composite Bridges with Ambient Vibration Measurements
title_sort dynamic assessment of shear connectors in composite bridges with ambient vibration measurements
url http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE140101741
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/49604