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Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 777–784

The Twelfth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction

Vibration Characteristics of an Overpass Bridge During

Full-Scale Destructive Testing
D.M. SIRINGORINGOa*, Y. FUJINOa, T. NAGAYAMAa, and H.WENZELb
a
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan
b
Vienna Consulting Engineers, Vienna, Austria

Abstract

Progressive destructive testing is a schematic way of applying damage on a structure and evaluating the immediate
effects in terms of the change in structural characteristics. Generally a progressive destructive test is conducted on a
small scale specimen in a controlled environment such as laboratory. On-site full-scale progressive damage of an
existing structure, which is rare considering cost and size of the structure, is an important learning opportunity in a
framework of structural health monitoring research. Such a test provides an opportunity to observe the real change in
structural characteristics which often masked by environment effects. Moreover such a test can be utilized as a
benchmark for several damage detection methods. In this paper a full-scale progressive destructive test of an overpass
post-tensioned bridge is presented. The bridge was instrumented with vibration sensors and the ambient acceleration
responses were recorded during damage stages. Damage was introduced by cutting one of bridge piers at the footing
level. This type of damage is expected to simulate a condition where a bridge suffers from a non-uniform pier
settlement. By applying time and frequency domain vibration analysis, as well as system identification, evolution of
dynamic characteristics caused by the damage is quantified. The results show that changes of natural frequencies are
clearly visible, thus can be used as indicator of damage presence, while the change in mode shapes can be used as the
local damage indicator.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Keywords: bridge structural health monitoring, bridge destructive testing, ambient vibration
measurement, system identification

*
Corresponding author: Email: [email protected]

1877–7058 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.07.098
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1. Introduction

Vibration measurement during progressive damage test of a full-scale structure is an important learning
opportunity. From such measurement, one can observe evolution of dynamic characteristics, validate
damage detection methods, and formulate the baseline criteria for typical structural deteriorations. In this
paper a study on progressive and destructive bridge testing is presented. The study includes vibration
measurement during destructive testing, and the results of vibration analysis. Ambient vibration
measurements were conducted before, during and after applying the damage. Vibration characteristics at
each stage are evaluated using spectrogram analysis in frequency domain and time-domain system
identification. Sensitive features that can be utilized as indicators of damage were extracted from
vibration characteristics.

2. Object bridge and measurement setup

The object bridge is the S101 Overpass Bridge located in Reibersdorf, Upper Austria, west side of Vienna,
Austria. The bridge crossed over the national highway A1 Westautobahn Austria. It was a post-tensioned
concrete bridge with the main span of 32m, side spans of 12m, and the width of 6.6m (Figure 1). The
deck is continuous over the piers and the deck rested on abutment at both ends. The bridge was a typical
overpass in Austrian national highway and was built in 1960. Although there were no known structural
problems, the bridge had to be demolished in 2008 to provide a space for additional lane for the highway
underneath. Before demolition, series of vibration test was carried out by the Vienna Consulting
Engineers and Bridge Laboratory of the University of Tokyo team in a two-day measurement campaign in
December 10-11, 2008.
Vibration measurement system consists of six triaxial accelerometers. During the two-day measurement,
ambient vibration of bridge was measured and six sensor configurations were employed. Two sensors (i.e.
node A and B) were kept at the same place throughout measurement to provide reference for time-
synchronization. Four other sensors were the roving sensors that moved from one end to the other end of
the bridge in an attempt to obtain a complete bridge mode shape. During the two-day measurement,
temperature condition was relatively equal with average temperature of -2oC.

Figure 1. S101 Overpass Bridge and damage introduction by slicing one of the piers (VCE 2009)

3. Damage scenarios

Damage was applied to the structure by cutting one of the pier columns just above the footing level. The
cut was made twice each was approximately 5 cm layer of concrete. Damage1 and Damage2 is defined as
a state where the first and second cut is made, respectively (Figure 3). During the cutting process, a steel
column was placed alongside the pier and tightened to the pier with steel rods. A hydraulic jack was
placed on bottom of the steel column to provide a temporary support. Immediately after the cutting
process was completed, the temporary steel column was lowered gradually by releasing the pressure in
the hydraulic jack. This caused vertical settlement of the bridge at the location of pier column. To further
induce pier settlement, pressure in hydraulic jack was released and the temporary steel column was
lowered 1cm. This was followed by 1cm vertical settlement of pier (Damage3). The settlement was
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further increased to 2 cm by further lowering the temporary steel column 1 cm (Damage4). Finally, at
Damage 5, the steel column was lowered until 3cm but the total settlement of the bridge is only 2.7cm.
From this point, no further vertical settlement was observed. The pier column was suspended completely;
hence the hydraulic jack and temporary steel column did not function anymore. During the process of
damage and pier lowering, vertical settlement of the bridge at the pier location was recorded by geodetic
leveler and laser system. At the last stage, a steel plate was inserted to fill the gap between pier and the
footing. In this condition the pier rested on the plate and the stage is named Retrofitted stage.

Figure 2. Progressive damage scenarios

4. Observed changes in dynamic characteristics

4.1. Spectrogram analysis

Vibration analysis is conducted for the undamaged and damage stage. For damage stages, the analysis
consists of three main parts: 1) during pier cutting (i.e. Damage 1-4), 2) when the pier is completed
suspended (Damage 5), and 3) when steel-plate was inserted to close the gap between pier and footing
(Retrofitted). During all stages the accelerations were recorded with the main source of vibration come
from highway traffic underneath. During the first stage of damage, some vibration noise from cutting
machine was noted. However, the effect of machine vibration to the total response can be considered
negligible since in both undamaged and damaged stages level of accelerations remain constant, with the
RMS measured at reference channel A and B ranged between 0.3 to 0.9 cm/s2. In the following section,
the results of vibration analysis are presented through spectrogram analysis and system identification.
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Figure 3. Example of spectrogram of vertical acceleration throughout damage stages

Figure 3 shows an example of frequency content of vertical acceleration plotted as a spectrogram with
respect to damage stages. The dominant frequencies at the girder in vertical direction appear in the range
of 1-15 Hz. In the spectrogram, the ordinate consists of two parts, namely, the undamaged part (frame
number 100-150), and damaged part (frame number 150 onward). In the undamaged part, one can see
four distinct vertical lines representing four frequencies of the bridge in the frequency range of 3 to 14 Hz.
The first line is around 4 Hz, second line is around 6 Hz, the third and the forth line is around 9 Hz and 13
Hz respectively. Despite the fact that amplitude of ambient vibration was small, the frequency spectra
have very clear peaks indicating well-separated modes and suggesting that the records have high signal-
to-noise ratio. The four vertical straight lines suggest constant peaks in frequencies plot and small
variation of natural frequency estimates.
The damaged part shows distinct variation of frequencies. Starting from frame number 170 one can
observe the leftward shift of natural frequencies especially the forth mode (13 Hz). The other modes show
apparent shift starting from frame 200 onward, which correspond to the time when the bridge experienced
1cm of vertical settlement. Leftward frequency shift of the first, second and third mode continues until
frame number 230. Largest shifts were observed at the time when the pier was completely suspended
indicating the significant reduction of stiffness. Starting from frame number 240 we can observe
rightward shift of the natural frequencies. For the 1st mode, the frequency shifted back almost to its
original position, while some residual frequency shifts were observed for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th modes. Note
that frame 240 corresponds to the time when the steel-plate was inserted and the structure was in the
‘retrofitted’ state. This result indicates that the steel-plate insertion reduces the vertical flexibility of the
structure as evident by the rightward shift of the 1st and 3rd mode (all are bending), but not in the same
degree as it reduces the torsional flexibility, as evident by residual frequency shift in 2nd and 4th mode
(torsional modes). Results of spectrogram analysis reveal the evolution of natural frequencies during
damage stages.
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4.2. System identification results

Global modal parameters are derived from ambient acceleration response under the assumption of
stationary random excitation. To extract modal parameters, the Natural Excitation Technique (NExT) and
Eigensystem Realization Algorithm are employed in this study. In the NExT, the cross-correlation
function (CCF) between reference and roving nodes are computed and treated as the free-vibration
responses. Considering sensor arrangement, the global system identification is performed in two parts,
one is for undamaged stage where fourteen measurement nodes are used, and the other is for damaged
stage, where only six measurement nodes are used. Detail of the method and the synchronization
procedure can be found in reference (Siringoringo and Fujino 2009).

Table 1. Modal parameters of damaged bridge identified by ERA

Mode Frequency (Hz) Damping Ratio (%)

Damage 3&4 Damage 5 Retrofitted Damage 3&4 Damage 5 Retrofitted
st
1 Bending 3.90 (0.13) 3.65 (0.05) 3.94 (0.07) 1.98 (3.19) 2.10 (1.31) 2.76 (2.62)
1st Torsion 5.84 (0.08) 5.22 (0.20) 5.76 (0.05) 2.14 (1.23) 2.72 (2.54) 1.93 (1.05)
2nd Bending 9.21 (0.13) 8.16 (0.39) 9.04 (0.06) 2.12 (1.25) 1.93 (3.91) 2.13 (0.63)
2nd Torsion 11.76 (0.307) 10.28 (0.16) 11.06 (0.44) 1.49 (3.07) 1.23 (2.29) 1.48 (3.65)
Note: value in the bracket denotes the 95% confidence interval

Variability is an inevitable nature of ambient vibration measurement. Different environment conditions,

source of vibration excitation, and also noise in instrumentation may affect the response and the extracted
modal parameters. To investigate the effect of variability and to estimate the confidence bounds of
identified modal parameters, a statistical analysis utilizing Bootstrap method (Efron and Tibshirani) is
employed in this study. The Bootstrap method randomly selects and replicates the response from limited
number of record to create ensemble average of larger population of response. Statistical properties of the
ensemble average are computed to determine the bounds of uncertainty. To implement Bootstrap analysis,
large number of CCF data set was randomly selected from the available time-normalized CCF data, and
the CCF ensembles are formed. On each ensemble, the CCF ensemble average is computed and then
treated as Markov parameter in the Hankel matrix of ERA. This procedure is repeated for large number of
times to form a histogram of the identified modal parameters. The confidence bounds of modal
parameters are calculated by the percentile interval method that computes the 95% confidence limit by
sorting the modal parameters in an ordered list and defining the value of upper and lower 2.5% percentile.
Results of identification for damage stages are listed in Table 1, where they are divided into three groups:
1) Damage 3 and 4, 2) Damage 5, and 3) Retrofitted stage. Figure 4 shows the comparisons of 95%
confidence bound estimated by Bootstrap method. It can be seen in the figure and table that for Damage 3
and 4, natural frequencies of the second, third and forth modes experience significant changes as denoted
by frequency changes that are larger than the 95% confidence bound. These changes despite small can be
considered statistically significant and be used with confidence as damage indicators. On contrary,
frequency change of the first mode is statistically insignificant because its value is smaller than the 95%
confidence bounds and thus cannot be used as damage indicator. During Damage 5, the changes in natural
frequencies of all modes become more significant. All frequency changes are now larger than the 95%
confidence bounds. Damping increases slightly as a result of damage. The averaged values of damping
for all four modes were between 1.2 to 1.5 % for undamaged structure with small bound of 95%
confidence. These values increase slightly up to 2% for damage 3, 4, and 5; and up to 2.7% for retrofitted
condition. Note, however, that in damage condition the 95% confidence bound were significantly larger
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than that during undamaged. These large bounds indicate large variation in damping estimates.

Figure 4. Identified changes of frequencies due to damage. (a) Damage 3 and 4, (b) Damage 5, (c) Retrofitted, (d) Modal
displacement of pier-girder connection node.

4.3. Local Mode shape changes due to damage

Simulation using FEM suggests that the pier-cutting damage alters the support condition significantly and
the changes are observable in mode shapes (Figure 5 (a) and (b)). Two stationary points that were initially
located at the pier-girder connections become only one or shifted next to the undamaged pier. This change
is obvious because the pier that restraints vertical movement on the pier-girder-connection node does not
function anymore in damage condition. Observation on identified mode shapes reveals similar outcome.
Unfortunately, due to limited number of sensor, only half-span of mode shapes can be analyzed. To
compare these half-span mode shapes of damaged bridge with the complete span mode shape of
undamaged bridge, the first and second modes (i.e. bending and torsion) are normalized to the maximum
value that occurred in the midpoint of the span. In both modes, we can observe large modal displacement
at the pier-girder connection during damage stages. The largest modal displacement was observed in
Damage 5, when the pier is completely suspended. In addition, during Damage 5, the highest modal
displacement points of the torsion mode shifts toward damaged pier as suggested by FEM.
To quantify the significance of the change in modal displacement, the 95% confidence bounds of
identified mode shapes are computed for all damage stages. For comparison, we compute the modal
displacement at pier-girder connection using FEM for the first and second mode in undamaged and
damaged stages. For undamaged stage, their values are 0.017 and 0.03 for the first and second mode,
respectively. And for Damage 5 case, the values become 0.47 and 0.93, respectively. The values decrease
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at the retrofitted stage to 0.1 and 0.31 suggesting additional stiffness from steel plate. Note that the effect
of plate insertion is more apparent on the vertical bending mode than on torsional mode. These changes
are also significantly larger than the 95% confidence bounds indicating that for both modes, the changes
of modal displacement on the pier-girder connection are statistically significant and can be used as
damage indicator (Figure 4.d).

5. Conclusions

A non-uniform pier settlement –simulated as damage in this study, affects global stiffness of structure
significantly. This is evident by significant change in frequency of low-order modes of the bridge. The
effects are more obvious in torsional modes than in bending modes as indicated by larger changes in
frequencies of torsional modes than that of bending modes. Accordingly, this finding can be used as an
indicator of the presence of a non-uniform pier settlement.
Damage in the form of pier settlement also alters the mode shapes locally. Modal displacements at the
pier-girder node for damage cases increase significantly suggesting immediate effect of constraint-losing
at the boundary condition. The changes are evident from the bending and torsional low-order modes and
are well predicted by FEM. The effects of damage on mode shapes are more obvious on torsional modes
than on the bending modes as indicated by larger changes in modal displacement of pier-girder node of
torsional modes than that of bending modes.
In general damping increases as the damage level increases. Estimations from ERA indicate that damping
in damage stages increase up to 2.5-3% from the previous 1.5% for undamaged stage. Spatial distribution
of damping ratio was also evaluated by extracting individually damping ratio using autocorrelation and
logarithmic decrement technique. Spatial distribution of damping reveals that the damping of the side-
span is generally higher than that of middle span. During damage stages, some spatial variations of
damping were observed. These spatial variations, however, do not reveal any distinct patterns that can be
used conclusively as indication of damage location.

Figure 5. Mode shapes of undamaged and damaged stages (a) FEM generated modes, (b) experimentally identified mode 1, (c)
experimentally identified mode 2
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Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Dr. Di Su, Mr. Chondro Tandian, Mr. Robert Veit-Egerer
and Ms. Monika Widmann during the experiment.

References

[1] Siringoringo DM and Fujino Y. Noncontact operational modal analysis of structural members by Laser Doppler Vibrometer,
Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 2009, 24,pp. 249-265.
[2] Efron B and Tibshirani RJ. An Introduction to the Bootstrap, volume 57 of Monographs on Statistics and Applied Probability,
NEW YORK, Chapmann & Hall; 1993.
[3] Vienna Consulting Engineers (VCE). Progressive damage test S101 Flyover Reibesdorf, Internal Report Nr.08/2308, Vienna
Austria, May 2009