Long-term health monitoring for deteriorated bridge structures based on Copula Theory

Maintenance of deteriorated bridge structures has always been one of the challenging issues in developing countries as it is directly related to daily life of people including trade and economy. An effective maintenance strategy is highly dependent on timely inspections on the bridge health condition. This study is intended to investigate an approach for detecting bridge damage for the long-term health monitoring by use of copula theory. Long-term measured data for the seven-span plate-Gerber bridge is investigated. Autoregressive time series models constructed for the observed accelerations taken from the bridge are utilized for the computation of damage indicator for the bridge. The copula model is used to analyze the statistical changes associated with the modal parameters. The changes in the modal parameters with the time are identified by the copula statistical properties. Applicability of the proposed method is also discussed based on a comparison study among other approaches.

在发展中国家，劣化桥梁结构的维护一直是具有挑战性的问题之一，因为它直接关系到包括贸易和经济在内的人们的日常生活。一种有效的维护策略在很大程度上依赖于对桥梁健康状况的及时检查。本研究旨在探讨一种利用连接函数理论进行桥梁损伤检测以实现长期健康监测的方法。对一座七跨板梁 - 吉尔伯特桥的长期测量数据进行了研究。利用从桥上获取的观测加速度构建的自回归时间序列模型来计算桥梁的损伤指标。连接函数模型用于分析与模态参数相关的统计变化。通过连接函数的统计特性来识别模态参数随时间的变化。基于与其他方法的比较研究，还讨论了所提方法的适用性。