Laboratory investigation of damage detection of truss bridge joints using vibration responses under moving load

During operation, a variety of factors, including earthquakes, wind, fatigue, the environment, and many others, can always cause damage to structures and the characteristics of the structure change as a result of the damage. The availability of low-cost methods for detecting damage in truss bridges makes it possible to examine a greater number of operating bridges and ultimately reduces future losses and risks. As a result, researchers' pursuit of suitable methods for detecting damage in structures has grown significantly over time. Bridges have always been the focus of researchers' efforts to comprehend their behavior and develop methods for identifying damage because of their significance as the infrastructure of every nation. In this study, an eight-span truss bridge was subjected to a moving load in a laboratory process, and the vertical displacement response of only one desired point of the truss lower chord is measured, in the damaged and intact condition. On the other hand, the influence line diagrams of all truss members have been extracted during the modeling in finite element software. The efficacy of this method in detecting damage in truss bridge screw connections has been evaluated using fourteen distinct damage scenarios. The results show that if damage occurs in the bridge connections, the difference diagram of displacement responses of two healthy and damaged states and the influence line diagram of the member whose connections are damaged will match in terms of shape and can be an indicator to identify the damage. This method works for all of the truss bridge's members, and it has worked even when more than one member was damaged. Considering that this method has been numerically validated in the previous study, using a more accurate displacement sensor with less noise and using conditions closer to those of the numerical analysis improves the accuracy of the results.