Structural health monitoring of cable-supported bridges in Hong Kong

Structural health monitoring in bridge engineering is the tracing of the structural conditions of the bridge based on four major categories of physical quantities, namely: environmental loads and status, operation loads, bridge features and bridge responses by reliable on-structure instrumentation system and effective evaluation tools. In the past decade, structural health monitoring system has been adopted to monitor and evaluate the structural health conditions of cable-supported bridges in Hong Kong. The structural health monitoring in Hong Kong is carried out by wind and structural health monitoring system (WASHMS). The WASHMS is devised based on modular architecture and is currently composed of six modules, namely:. Module 1 - Sensory system,Module 2 - Data acquisition and transmission system,Module 3 - Data processing and control system,Module 4 - Structural health evaluation system,Module 5 - Structural health data management system, andModule 6 - inspection and maintenance system.This chapter introduces the functional and operational requirements of each modular system and tabulates the details of physical quantities required for monitoring and evaluation. Graphical outputs of some typical monitoring results from WASHMS are presented for the demonstration of WASHMS operation. Examples of WASHMS applications are also quoted.