Long-Term Monitoring and Analysis of a Curved Concrete Box-Girder Bridge

Capital investment in national infrastructure is significant. The need to maintain and protect critical infrastructure links has led in recent years to significant developments in the area of structural health monitoring. The objective is to track a structure’s long-term performance, typically using sensors, and to successively compare the most recently measured responses with prior response history. During construction of the West Street On-Ramp, a curved concrete box girder bridge, located in the city of Anaheim (California), eleven accelerometers were permanently installed on its bridge deck. The associated data acquisition system was configured to record once a specified threshold acceleration response was exceeded; during the period 2002–2010 a total of 1350 datasets including six earthquakes, for each of the eleven sensors, were acquired. This automatically acquired data was supplemented, during the summer of 2009, with responses measured during controlled vehicle tests. Six accelerometers were additionally installed on the frame of the weighed test vehicle. This paper presents the findings of the analyses of these measured data sets and serves to inform owners and managers as to the potential feedback from their instrumentation investment. All response histories were analyzed using frequency domain techniques for system identification. Extraction of the modal characteristics revealed a continuous reduction, of approximately 5%, in the first three natural frequencies over the period of the study. The measured responses from the vehicle sensors are discussed in the context of identifying the potential for bridge frequency measurement using instrumented vehicles

Equivalent Modal Damping of Short-Span Bridges Subjected to Strong Motion

In this paper four different methods are investigated for estimating the equivalent modal damping ratios of a short-span bridge under strong ground motion by considering the energy dissipation at the boundary. The Painter Street Overcrossing (PSO) is investigated because of seismic data availability. Computed responses using the response-spectrum method with the equivalent damping ratios estimates are compared with the recorded responses. The results show that the four methods provide reasonable estimation of equivalent modal damping ratios and that neglecting off-diagonal elements in the damping matrix is the most efficient and practical method. The equivalent damping ratio of the PSO was nearly 25% under an earthquake with peak ground acceleration of 0.55g, which is much higher than the conventional assumption of 5%

Design of Jetty Piles Using Artificial Neural Networks

To overcome the complication of jetty pile design process, artificial neural networks (ANN) are adopted. To generate the training samples for training ANN, finite element (FE) analysis was performed 50 times for 50 different design cases. The trained ANN was verified with another FE analysis case and then used as a structural analyzer. The multilayer neural network (MBPNN) with two hidden layers was used for ANN. The framework of MBPNN was defined as the input with the lateral forces on the jetty structure and the type of piles and the output with the stress ratio of the piles. The results from the MBPNN agree well with those from FE analysis. Particularly for more complex modes with hundreds of different design cases, the MBPNN would possibly substitute parametric studies with FE analysis saving design time and cost

Lessons from two field tests on pipeline damage detection using acceleration measurement

ABSTRACT Early detection of pipeline damages has been highlighted in water supply industry. Water pressure change in pipeline due to a sudden rupture causes pipe to vibrate and the pressure change propagates through the pipeline. From the measurement of pipe vibration the rupture can be detected. In this paper, the field test results and observations are provided for implementing next generation of SCADA system for pipeline rupture detection. Two field tests were performed on real buried plastic and metal pipelines for rupture detection. The rupture was simulated by introducing sudden water pressure drop caused by water blow-off and valve control. The measured acceleration data at the pipe surfaces were analyzed in both time and frequency domain. In time domain, the sudden narrow increase of acceleration amplitude was used as an indication of rupture event. For the frequency domain analysis, correlation function and the short time Fourier Transform technique were adopted to trace the dominant frequency shift. The success of rupture detection was found to be dependent on several factors. From the frequency analysis, the dominant frequency of metal water pipe was shifted by the water pressure drop, however, it was hard to identify from the plastic pipeline. Also the influence of existing facility such as airvac on pipe vibrations was observed. Finally, several critical lessons learned in the viewpoint of field measurement are discussed in this paper

Lessons from two field tests on pipeline damage detection using acceleration measurement

ABSTRACT Early detection of pipeline damages has been highlighted in water supply industry. Water pressure change in pipeline due to a sudden rupture causes pipe to vibrate and the pressure change propagates through the pipeline. From the measurement of pipe vibration the rupture can be detected. In this paper, the field test results and observations are provided for implementing next generation of SCADA system for pipeline rupture detection. Two field tests were performed on real buried plastic and metal pipelines for rupture detection. The rupture was simulated by introducing sudden water pressure drop caused by water blow-off and valve control. The measured acceleration data at the pipe surfaces were analyzed in both time and frequency domain. In time domain, the sudden narrow increase of acceleration amplitude was used as an indication of rupture event. For the frequency domain analysis, correlation function and the short time Fourier Transform technique were adopted to trace the dominant frequency shift. The success of rupture detection was found to be dependent on several factors. From the frequency analysis, the dominant frequency of metal water pipe was shifted by the water pressure drop, however, it was hard to identify from the plastic pipeline. Also the influence of existing facility such as airvac on pipe vibrations was observed. Finally, several critical lessons learned in the viewpoint of field measurement are discussed in this paper

Distinct kinetics of inhibitory currents in thalamocortical neurons that arise from dendritic or axonal origin.

Thalamocortical neurons in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) transfer visual information from retina to primary visual cortex. This information is modulated by inhibitory input arising from local interneurons and thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) neurons, leading to alterations of receptive field properties of thalamocortical neurons. Local GABAergic interneurons provide two distinct synaptic outputs: axonal (F1 terminals) and dendritic (F2 terminals) onto dLGN thalamocortical neurons. By contrast, TRN neurons provide only axonal output (F1 terminals) onto dLGN thalamocortical neurons. It is unclear if GABAA receptor-mediated currents originating from F1 and F2 terminals have different characteristics. In the present study, we examined multiple characteristics (rise time, slope, halfwidth and decay τ) of GABAA receptor-mediated miniature inhibitory postsynaptic synaptic currents (mIPSCs) originating from F1 and F2 terminals. The mIPSCs arising from F2 terminals showed slower kinetics relative to those from F1 terminals. Such differential kinetics of GABAAR-mediated responses could be an important role in temporal coding of visual signals

Diverse IPSC kinetics originating from local interneurons.

<p><b>A</b>. Schematic diagram illustrating dual whole-cell recordings from synaptically-coupled dLGN interneurons and thalamocortical neurons (<i>left</i>) and electrophysiological responses to depolarizing current (<i>right</i>). Current-induced excitation of interneurons elicited two sequential ueIPSCs in dLGN thalamocortical neurons. <b>B</b>. Population data illustrating rise time (i), halfwidth (ii), and slope (iii) as a function of mIPSC amplitude obtained from VB neurons (n = 13). Note the number on the top indicating the same amplitude comparison of local interneuron ueIPSC. <b>C</b>. Population data illustrating rise time (i), halfwidth (ii), and slope (iii) as a function of amplitude obtained from VB mIPSCs and local interneuron ueIPSC (red). <b>D</b>. The activation of local interneurons induces GABA release in two modes, fast decay τ (pair #2, #6, #7) and slow decay τ (pair #1,#3, #4, #5). *, p<0.05.</p