Numerical Parametric Study on the Effectiveness of the Contact-Point Response of a Stationary Vehicle for Bridge Health Monitoring

Indirect bridge health monitoring is conducted by running an instrumented vehicle over a bridge, where the vehicle serves as a source of excitation and as a signal receiver; however, it is also important to investigate the response of the instrumented vehicle while it is in a stationary position while the bridge is excited by other source of excitation. In this paper, a numerical model of a stationary vehicle parked on a bridge excited by another moving vehicle is developed. Both stationary and moving vehicles are modeled as spring–mass single-degree-of-freedom systems. The bridges are simply supported and are modeled as 1D beam elements. It is known that the stationary vehicle response is different from the true bridge response at the same location. This paper investigates the effectiveness of contact-point response in reflecting the true response of the bridge. The stationary vehicle response is obtained from the numerical model, and its contact-point response is calculated by MATLAB. The contact-point response of the stationary vehicle is investigated under various conditions. These conditions include different vehicle frequencies, damped and undamped conditions, different locations of the stationary vehicle, road roughness effects, different moving vehicle speeds and masses, and a longer span for the bridge. In the time domain, the discrepancy of the stationary vehicle response with the true bridge response is clear, while the contact-point response agrees well with the true bridge response. The contact-point response could detect the first, second, and third modes of frequency clearly, unlike the stationary vehicle response spectra.