Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols 105-107 (2012) pp 1342-1345 Online: 2011-09-27

© (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.105-107.1342

Structural Reliability Analysis of a Steel Truss Bridge Based on

Monitoring Data

JIANG Xianglin1, a, ZENG Guoliang2,b , TAN Jinhua3,c

1
School of transportation,Wuhan University of Technology & Jiangxi Traffic Science Research
Institute,Nanchang, 330038, China
2
Jiangxi Traffic Science Research Institute, Nanchang, 330038, China
3
School of transportation,Wuhan University of Technology,Wuhan,430063, China
a b c
350315033@qq.com, zeng-guoliang@163.com, tan-jh@163.com

Keywords: Steel Truss Bridge, Reliability analysis, Monitoring information, Fatigue life

Abstract. The stress histories of monitored members are used to get stress spectrums for a steel truss
bridge through rain-flow algorithm, then the distribution functions and their characteristic parameters
of stress spectrums are obtained to simulate the stress spectrums numerically through Monte Carlo
methold, which used to evaluate the structural fatiguelife based on stress-probabilistic model and
accumulated damage theory, and the fatiguelife and its hot spots of whole bridge are acquired , which
is important for the strategy of bridge management.

Introduction
Located in China, the researched bridge spans the Yangtze River. It is a combined road and rail
bridge and completed in October,1997. The central section of the bridge is the combined action of
steel tarch and truss bridges and has a main span of 216 meters (709 ft) and two side spans of 180
meters (590 ft). The double deck bridge carries four vehicular lanes and two sidewalks on the top deck
and two railway tracks on the bottom deck.With the heavy traffic and the increasing age, the problem
resulted from accumulation damage and function degeneration occurs and an monitor system is
developed to collect the in-site information for the security rating of bridge. There are more than two
handred dynamic monitoring stations on whole bridge and part of them are shown in Fig.1 and Fig.2.

Figure.1 Dynamic monitoring stations on the main span

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 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 105-107 1343

Figure.2 Dynamic monitoring stations on side spans

Work frame
The work steps are mainly described as follow:
1. Acquiring fatigue stress spectrums: stress cycles under all levels of the stress amplitude have
been counted for each monitoring member through rain-flow algorithm.
2. The distribution functions and their characteristic parameters of stress spectrums are
obtained from statistics information, then the stress spectrums simulated numerically
through Monte Carlo methold using these functions, and the parameters are adjusted by
comparing with the empirical one’s.
3. Evaluate the structural fatiguelife based on stress-probabilistic model and accumulated
damage theory, and the fatiguelife and its hot spots of whole bridge are acquired , then give
advices suited for the bridge management strategy, including making decision of service
under monitoring, rehabilitation or replacement.

Figure.3 Denoising the original signal

Stress spectrums
Measured stress history data is numerous and need to be filtrated firstly, some data are ignored in
rain-flow count which includes several circumstances : 1 noise abatement before counting when the
original signal impacted by temperature, vibration or other reasons, then a smooth stress curve
1344 Vibration, Structural Engineering and Measurement I

acquired as shown in Fig.3; 2 stress value between adjacent valley and peak, only crests and troughs
of stress wave maintained; 3 when a stress amplitude is too small to inflect the fatiguelife, an
threshold value is provided to filtrate it.
The cycles under all levels of stress amplitude have been counted through rain-flow method and
could be illustrated as stress spectrums curve for a testing period.

Probabilistic fatiguelife assessment

According to Miner’s rule, the accumulated damage is:

n1 n2 n n
D= + + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ + i ,+ ⋅ ⋅⋅ = ∑ i
N1 N 2 Ni Ni (1)
where ni is number of observations in the stress-range, Ni is the number of cycles to failure
corresponding to the stress-range σ i . According to the national standard TB(2005) of China, Ni can
be obtained from Eq.2.

lg N + 3 lg σ i = 12.42
(2)
The stress spectrum is gained statistically from the results of Monte carlo simulation of stress
history, then the damage is calculated separately for each stress-range, and the fatiguelife is achieved
when the accumulated damage D is up to 1.
Since the measured data is multitudinous, a short sample data is analysed to get fatigue hot spots
for the whole bridge firstly, then the detailed research work focus on these hot spots which both make
sure of the security and the lowcost. Fatiguelives of preliminary assessment for all measured stations
of bridge are acquired and a part of results shown in Tab.1.

Table.1 The fatiguelife of preliminary assessment under 99% confidence(year)

Station 0101201 0101203 0201202 0201203 0201205 0201206 0301201 0301202
Fatigurelife >200 98.5 76.5 69.4 >200 79 72.4 66.8
Station 0401201 0401202 0401203 0501201 0501202 0501203 0501204 0501205
Fatigurelife 86 >200 70.5 156.8 >200 >200 >200 >200
Station 0501206 0701201 0701202 0701203 701205 0701206 0801207 0801211
Fatigurelife 71.7 >200 76.1 >200 >200 67.8 >200 103.1
Station 0801212 0801214 0901202 0901203 0901204 0901207 0901208 0901209
Fatigurelife >200 >200 91.1 89.7 92.5 78.4 79.8 75.6

Table.2 Fatigurelives under 99% confidence for fatigure hot spots(year)

Station 0801001 0801002 0801003 0801004 0801005 0801006 0801007 0801008
Fatigurelife 121 119 129 102 129 95 >200 64
Station 0601203 0601207 0601209 0801206 0801216 0901110 0901201 0901207
Fatigurelife 88 84 85 96 91 96 128 98
Station 0301202 0701206 0201203 0401203 0501206 0301201 0901209 1001202
Fatigurelife 80.7 78.6 83.8 95.4 83 94.4 94.1 >200
Station 1101201 1001203 0101101 0101103 0201101 0201202 0201206 0901208
Fatigurelife 93.9 89.6 93.8 74 104.1 102.1 88.9 97.6
Station 0301103 0501106 0501107 0601102 0601105 0701110 0701112 0901111
Fatigurelife 84.4 81.6 103.2 86.3 122.3 74.6 87.4 91.3
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 105-107 1345

The monitored stations whose probabilitic fatigurelives is less than 90 are selected to be
investigated further as hot spots, and their fatigurelives are evaluated using sample data from longer
period, thus the results become more accurate and more stable.the corresponding results are listed in
Tab. 2 partly. The results indicates that the fatigurelives of members in steel truss span are generally
smaller than those in side span, and the fatigure responses are more outstanding too. In main span the
fatigurelife of test point 0701102 is shorter than those of other skew web members, damages in
0701110, 0701112 are more severer than those in other stringers, the test point 0701206 gets the
shortest fatiguelife in whole bridge, which is less than 70 years and become the conclusive member of
fatigurelife in whole bridge.
For the side spans , the evaluating results shows the similar rules as those in main span, where the
stations 0901110, 0901111 bear more fatigure damages than other stringers, and the hangers 0901201,
0901207 get shorter fatigurelives, which located near the support bears.

Conclusion
The fatiguelife of a steel truss bridge is evaluated on stress-probabilistic model using monitoring
data in this article, and the main conclusions are as follows:
1. The fatigure damage of the bridge is more than the expected, since the structural designlife is no
less than 100 years, while some evaluated fatigurelives of key members are less than 70 years, which
result from the heavier traffic loads than the designing ones.
2. Aumost in all spans, damages on stringers and hangers are the most serious, especialy when the
members are located near bears.
3. Local damages haven’t been taken into acount here such as residual stress, abnormal
information, local cracks, so the real damages maybe more serious than the evaluated results, and the
integrity work should assessment using fracture mechanics method.

Acknowledgements
This paper condenses the efforts and wisdom of the colleagues from Jiangxi Traffic Science
Research Institute, and sponsored by the project from the Innovation Centre. Thanks all.

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Vibration, Structural Engineering and Measurement I
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.105-107

Structural Reliability Analysis of a Steel Truss Bridge Based on the Monitoring Data
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.105-107.1342

DOI References
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closure with emphasis on geometry and mesh refinement effects, Engineering Fracture Mechanics 70 (2003)
1475-1498.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0013-7944(02)00168-6