University of Florida. Dept. of Civil and Coastal Engineering

Florida. Dept. of Transportation

Tech Report

Tampa (Florida)

Florida. Dept. of Transportation

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge has several different types of monitoring instruments in place maintained by Florida

Department of Transportation (FDOT) offices, divisions, and partners. The current decentralized approach to data collection

and monitoring on the bridge has resulted in a number of inefficiencies in the methods by which equipment is maintained

and observational data is obtained. Although the safety of day-to-day bridge operations is not being compromised, the

existing inefficiencies and challenges could be mitigated by a more robust, holistic monitoring system design, which would

also support system expansion to accommodate additional sensors and more sophisticated monitoring approaches. The longterm

research goal is to take the system from its current limited functionality to a fully integrated and highly flexible

monitoring system with a user-friendly Web interface and full data archiving. This proposed system will combine data from

existing sensors (weather stations, GNSS/GPS, accelerometers, etc.) into a single monitoring interface for data visualization

and alerts. To leverage the data produced by the integrated monitoring system, a calibrated finite element model will be

developed for use in setting loading and response thresholds for warning and maintenance decisions. The first step in

achieving these goals is to understand the challenges and limitations of the existing monitoring system. As such, the larger

research effort is divided into phases, and this report describes Phase I, in which the observations and recommendations in

achieving the project’s goals have been summarized.

PDF

http://www.fdot.gov/research/Completed_Proj/Summary_STR/FDOT-BDV31-977-43-rpt.pdf

FDOT Contract No. BDV31-977-43

US Transportation Collection