Contribution to Bridge Damage Analysis

Mohammed Lamine Moussaoui1,a , Abderrahmane Kibboua2,b and Mohamed

Chabaat3,c
1

Dept. of C.M.P, Faculty of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering, University of Sciences

and Technology Houari Boumediene, B.P. 32, El-Alia, Bab Ezzouar, Algiers, 16111,
Algeria

National Earthquake Engineering Research Center (CGS), Rue Kaddour Rahim B.P. 252,
Hussein-Dey, Algiers, Algeria

Dept. of Structures and Materials, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Sciences and
Technology Houari Boumediene, B.P. 32, El-Alia, Bab Ezzouar, Algiers, 16111, Algeria
a

moussaouiml8@gmail.com or mmoussaoui@usthb.dz bakibboua@cgs-dz.org

c
mchabaat@yahoo.com or mchabaat@usthb.dz

Keywords: Damage Detection Bridge FTCS Generalized Hookes Law Sparse Finite
Element Model Updating MMUM Dynamic Tetrahedron Mixture Laws.
Abstract. Structural damage detection has become an important research area since several works
[2] were focused on the crack zones detection in order to foresee the appropriate solutions. The
present research aims to carry out the reinforced concrete bridge damage detection with the finite
element mathematical model updating method
. Unknown degrees of freedom
are
expanded from measured ones. The partitioned system of equations has provided a large sub-system
of equations which can be solved efficiently by handling sparse matrix algorithms at each time step
of the finite time centered space
discretization. A new and efficient method for the
calculation of the constant strain tetrahedron shape functions has been developed [1,3,4,5,6]. The
topological and analytical geometry of the tetrahedron and its useful formulae enabled us to develop
its shape functions and its corresponding finite element matrices. The global finite element matrices
and sparse matrix computations have been achieved with a calculus source code. The reinforced
concrete mixture has been modeled with the mixture laws [16] which led to its material properties
matrix as an orthotropic case with 9 constants and 2 planes of symmetry from the generalized
Hookes law [1]. It is noticed that the material is made of steel, cement, gravels, sand and
impurities. The data computations have been implemented with optimized
time and data
storage using vectorial programming of efficient algorithms [11,12]. The sparse matrix algorithms
used in this study are: solution of symmetric systems of equations [ ] [ ][ ]{ } { },
multiplication, addition, transposition, permutation of rows and columns, and ordering of the
matrices representations. All the sparse matrices are given in row-wise sparse format.
Analysis Procedure
The stiffness and mass matrices of each tetrahedron have been generated efficiently by using the
formulations cited in [1]. The tetrahedral element shape functions are obtained with the geometrical

method which enabled us to calculate the normalized constants of each element facet by the
linear solving with partial pivoting where;
(1)

When considering:

due to the transverse isotropy, the new material properties matrix

cited in [1] takes the following form;

(2)
[

Where the elementary strains are;

{ }

] [

+ { } and

][

[ ]

(3)

Boundary Conditions
It is necessary to reduce the size of the first system of equations with numerical computations when
using the corresponding boundary conditions. In the first step we obtain the following form with the
permutation process [12] since we have arbitrary located
;

[
[

where

(4)

: are the unknown

: the measured ones, and

]
the fixed ones.

To obtain the permuted matrix, we perform;

[

[ ][

][ ]

[ ][

][ ]

(5)

The matrix [ ] of permutations is generated with ones data values and their pointing vectors are
handled with the same sparse representations. All the elements in [ ] are carefully located with
respect to the positions of their
. The resulting matrices are used in the partitioned system of
equations cited in reference [1] where another permutation is necessary in order to get the square
and rectangular measured and unmeasured corresponding data sub-matrices.
An ordered row-wise representation of the following rectangular sparse matrix as;
1
2
3
4

1
*
0
0
0

2
0
0
0
*

3
0
0
*
0

4
*
0
0
*

5
*
0
0
0

6
*
0
0
0

7
0
0
0
*

8
0
0
*
0

needs to generate and handle the following one-dimensional arrays ;

row locations:
column numbers:
data values :

The two first arrays have integer values and the third one is in double precision of floating point
values. All data computations are performed with only one-dimensional array operations on located
non-zeros elements matrices. If
and
then;
[

[ ][

][ ]

(6)

The given form in (Eq. 6) corresponds to the condensed and partitioned stiffness matrix where;
[[ ]

[ ]

(7)

We obtain therefore;
[

[ ][

][ ]

and

[ ][

][ ]

(8)

such that;

and

[ ]

[[ ]

[ ]

(9)

[ ]

[[ ]

[ ]

(10)

The same process has been applied to generate the mass matrix partitions. The structural damping
matrix has been included with the
[14,15] linearization model.
The volume of the tetrahedron corresponds to the

and

[13] with
|

vertices such that;

|

(11)

Ambient vibration recordings [7,8,9,10,17] force the civil structures like bridges, buildings and
dams into vibrations similarly to those produced by earthquakes corresponding to the most severe
case. They are also caused by wind forces. The recorded system response is the characteristic of the
system itself with a flat noise spectrum [7,9].
Test Application
An illustrative simple problem (see Fig. 1) is presented in this section in order to test the program
running and the efficiency of the developed methods. The size model is
corresponding to
nodes with
restrained
and
measured
. The data acquisition of measured
displacements values are given on 12
at locations with components in a
recording
duration corresponding to the
time range [1]. The available application allows to handle

about 179999 data values with

analysis is the constant strain tetrahedron.

for each measured

. The main element in this

Figure 1: Test Application

A sinusoidal excitation load has been applied at the
(

) with the same time step.

= mass truck

and

(Fig. 2) such that

gravitation for a turned on and parked

truck as a first simulation. The next simulation case considers a moving truck which excitation
amplitude loads correspond to the reached nodes at the time steps locations. Wind loads are
calculated from Uniform Building Code
with:
where
is the wind pressure given with
which represents the most
severe one in areas with basic wind speeds of
and has terrain that is flat and
unobstructed facing large bodies of water in width relative to any quadrant of the building site and
taking in consideration its height
for medium wind speed zones. Only the boundary bridge
nodes are submitted to these wind loads.

Figure 2: External Excitation Load

The translational time displacements solution is performed with;
[ ]{
where;

[ ]
{ }

)[

(
{

((

)[

((

)[

([

((

{ }

)[

)[

[
]
]

]
]) {

)[

(
(

(12)

)[

([
]

)[

]) {

]) {

]) {

]) {

(13)

Unmeasured displacements are expanded from measured ones with the numerical matrices
operations. The available application enables to compute a large amount number of the
displacements time step values
in the iterative process. However storing and plotting such
values becomes complicated when requesting a great random access memory. A practical way
consists to compute the stresses inside the tetrahedral element at each time step. Therefore the
material strength is checked at each time step iteration. This enables us to immediately detect any
structural damage at the exact corresponding location.
Initial Conditions
The initial conditions are introduced with the linear solving of;
[

]{

with the above cited symmetrical algorithm and where;

(14)

)[

(
{

{ }

({

{ }

}
}

( )[

((

)[

(15)

( )[
{

]) {

(16)
(17)
(18)

Notice that the dynamic excitation is assumed to start with an initial speed and a zero acceleration.
Conclusion
This analysis has given us the damage detection at the exact identified
of the finite element
mesh. An efficient calculus source code has been developed for the tetrahedral finite element
processing. Sparse matrix algorithms applied to the
method have been helpful in solving
the linearized dynamic equation of motion. The expanded time displacement solution from
measured data corresponds to a trivial and better solution.
References
[ ]

Mohammed Lamine Moussaoui, Mohamed Chabaat and Abderrahmane Kibboua; Dynamic

Detection of Reinforced Concrete Bridge Damage by Finite Element Model Updating, Journal
of Mechanics Engineering and Automation, Vol. 04, N 1, pp. 40-45, 2014, David Publishing
Company, USA.

[ ]

M. Imregun and W.J. Visser; Technical Article, A Review of Model Updating Techniques,
Mech. Engineering Dept., Imperial College of Science, London SW7, U.K.

[ ]

Mohammed Lamine Moussaoui, Mohamed Chabaat, Abderrahmane Kibboua; Damage

Detection in Bridges using a Mathematical Model by an Updating Method, The 9th
International Conference on Fracture and Strength of Solids (FEOFS2013), Jeju, Korea, June
2013.

[ ]

Mohammed Lamine Moussaoui, Mohamed Chabaat, Abderrahmane Kibboua; Damage

Detection in Bridges using a Mathematical Model by an Updating Method, The 4th Canadian
Conference on Nonlinear Solid Mechanics (CanCNSM2013), Montreal, Canada, July 2013.

[ ]

Mohammed Lamine Moussaoui, Mohamed Chabaat, Abderrahmane Kibboua; Dynamic

Detection of Reinforced Concrete Bridge Damages by Finite Element Model Updating, Book
of Abstracts, 4th Canadian Conference on Nonlinear Solid Mechanics (CanCNSM2013),
Montreal, Canada, July 2013.

[ ]

M.L. Moussaoui, M. Chabaat and A. Kibboua; Dynamic Detection of Reinforced Concrete

Bridge Damages by Finite Element Model Updating, 12th International Conference on
Fracture and Damage Mechanics (FDM2013), Sardinia , Italy, September 2013.

[ ]

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[ ]

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[ ]

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