Wright Road over Trout Brook – Potsdam, NY – October 2006
The Wright Road Bridge deployment was the first on an actual field structure for the Wireless Sensor Solution (WSS) platform developed at Clarkson University. The bridge is a 56 foot span concrete deck on steel stringer design with an integral abutment substructure. The research team successfully installed 11 strain transducers and 20 dual-axis accelerometers across the primary girders interfaced with 20 wireless sensor nodes. Sampling was performed at a per channel rate of 512Sps, though the data was processed and down-sampled to 128Sps prior to real-time transmission.
Despite the challenges associated with real-time, wireless monitoring using low-power RF chip transceivers and embedded processing, the average data success rate across all of the sensor nodes over ten 3 minute test cycles was 99.91% with 184 of the 200 time histories reported with 100% data delivery success. Although peak accelerations due to ambient traffic excitation rarely exceeded 10mg, Stochastic Subspace Identification (SSI) output-only system identification methods were able to extract modal parameters (mode shapes, natural frequencies, and damping ratios) for 14 structural modes. Strain measurements were leveraged to locate the neutral axis, verify composite action, examine distribution factors, and characterize end fixity of the girders.
Associated Journal Papers
Whelan, M.J. and Janoyan, K.D. (2009) “Design of a Robust, High-Rate Wireless Sensor Network for Static and Dynamic Structural Health Monitoring,” Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 20(7), 849-863.
Whelan, M.J., Gangone, M.V., Janoyan, K.D., and Jha, R. (2009) “Real-Time Wireless Vibration Monitoring for Operational Modal Analysis of an Integral Abutment Highway Bridge,” Engineering Structures 30(10), 2224-2235.
Gangone,M.V., Whelan, M.J., and Janoyan, K.D. (2010) “Deployment of a dense hybridge wireless sensing system for bridge assessment,” Structure and Infrastructure Engineering 7(5), 369-378
