On situ vibration based structural health monitoring of a railway steel truss bridge: a preliminary numerical study

Railway network is subject to increasing travelling loads and traffic frequency. In addition, since most of the bridges were built in the last century, they are subject to ageing and degradation. It is therefore necessary to develop proper structural health monitoring systems that can support periodical visual inspections. In this context, direct monitoring systems represent an important and promising solution for structural health monitoring purposes. This paper is the result of a numerical study performed on a 3D FE bridge model based on an existing structure: the latter is a Warren truss railway bridge, located in Northern Italy, built few years after the end of the second world war. The purpose of the study is to numerically evaluate the effectiveness in damage detection and localization of different vibration-based techniques. This analysis has been performed for a set of different damage scenarios, suggested by the infrastructure managers.