A significant vortex-induced vibration (VIV) was observed in a suspension bridge under a wind velocity of approximately 6 and 7 m/s, and with a maximum amplitude that exceeded the serviceability limitations. Since the observation of VIV in an operating bridge was an infrequent event, this study investigated the cause of unexpected VIV. A series of wind tunnel tests revealed the main cause of the VIV was temporary screens applied over the guardrails to shield the curing surface during replacement of epoxy-coated pavement. The characteristics of the measured VIV were consistent with those from experimental results in terms of amplitude and lock-in wind speed range. The effect of Scruton numbers on VIV amplitude was examined for several dominant modes with different modal mass and damping ratios. Since the VIV amplitude is sensitive to the inherent damping ratio, the modal damping ratios of the bridge were identified from output-only modal analysis by using the frequency domain decomposition. This approach was efficient in identifying the damping ratios of high modes that were challenging due to weakly excited signals. The damping ratio of the triggered mode for VIV was the lowest among the investigated modes and estimated to be the level of the design-damping ratio.

This study reports on the assessment of the vibrational serviceability performance of a parallel cable-stayed bridge, which was subjected to a vortex-induced vibration (VIV) in 2011, by identifying modal damping ratios from the operational monitoring data that were obtained. The natural excitation technique (NExT) combined with the eigen realization algorithm (ERA) was applied for the output-only modal analysis. Parameters regarding the NExT and ERA procedures were determined from a sensitivity analysis of identified damping ratios. Because a multiple tuned mass damper (MTMD) was installed at the center of the main span to mitigate VIV, the modal damping ratios before and after the installation of the MTMD were also compared. Several sets of operational monitoring data that had been collected under various windy conditions were used to develop a relationship between the identified damping ratios and the corresponding VIV level of the bridge. On the basis of these findings, the performance of the b...

Recent tragedies around the world have shown how accidents in the cable-stayed bridges can wreak havoc on the society. To ensure the safety of the cable-stayed bridges, several studies have estimated the cable tension force using the vibration of cables. Most of these methods for estimating the tension of a cable start with measuring the displacement of the cable. Recent development of commercial cameras provide opportunity for more convenient and efficient method for measuring the displacement of cable. However, traditional vision-based displacement measurement methods require the assumption that the movement of the cable should be measured in parallel to the camera plane. This assumption limits the installation location of the camera when measuring the displacement of a cable. Therefore, this study introduces a new vision-based cable displacement measurement system that can measure the displacement of a cable in various locations even when the camera is installed in the side of the cable. The proposed method consists of three phases: (1) camera projection matrix estimation, (2) cable tracking in the image coordinate, and (3) cable displacement estimation in the world coordinate. To validate the performance of the proposed method, a simulation-based validation test, a lab-scale validation test, and an on-site validation test were conducted. The simulation-based validation test verified the performance of the proposed method in an ideal condition, and the lab-scale validation test showed the performance of the method in physical environment. Finally, the on-site validation test showed that the proposed method can measure the cable displacement with a side view camera.

The recent development of automated operational modal analysis (OMA) has enabled the modal tracking of environmental and operational conditions. Variations in these conditions have prevented investigations into the long-term characteristics of the damping ratio due to its inherently high degree of scattering. In this study, the long-term damping characteristics of a twin cable-stayed bridge under environmental and operational variations were investigated. A displacement reconstruction algorithm was applied to resolve the model-order dependency in OMA-based damping estimates. In order to automatically establish groups of modal estimates, optimal parameters for a density-based unsupervised clustering algorithm were proposed on the basis of gaps between target modal frequencies. The proposed clustering parameters were first validated by comparing the clustering results with those of manually determined ground truth classes. Next, the applicability of the clustering parameters for long-term damping estimation was demonstrated by quantifying the dispersion of modal estimates in each cluster. Subsequently, the framework was applied to 2.5 years of monitoring data to evaluate the long-term damping characteristics of the twin cable-stayed bridge that is often subjected to high variations in environmental and operational conditions. The following aspects are mainly discussed: (1) seasonal fluctuation in long-term damping ratios; (2) the effect that aerodynamic interference exerts on variations in the dynamic characteristics; and (3) the amplitude dependency of the damping ratio. The probability distribution of the modal damping ratio is provided based on the statistical analysis of reliable modal damping ratios.