Condition/Health Monitoring of Railroad Bridges for Structural Safety, Integrity, and Durability

Details

• Creators:
  Malla, Ramesh B. ; de Oliveira, Celso ; Dhakal, Santosh
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Connecticut. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Corporate Contributors:
  University of Maine. Transportation Infrastructure Durability Center (TIDC) ; United States. Department of Transportation. University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program ; United States. Department of Transportation. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Accelerometers Bridge Management Systems Bridge Monitoring Displacement Dynamic Response Dynamic Stability Field Tests Finite Element Method Haul Distance Laser Doppler Velocimeters Mechanical Acceleration Monitoring Railroad Bride Material Testing Railroad Bridges Tension Tests Tests Velocity Vibrometers

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• Publication/ Report Number:
  69A3551847101
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; New England
• Edition:
  Final Report: 10/01/2018 to 9/30/2022
• Corporate Publisher:
  University of Maine. Transportation Infrastructure Durability Center (TIDC)
• Abstract:
  Long-haul passenger, commuter, and freight railroads are essential to maintaining a thriving economy, especially in New England, with its many urban areas, industries, and significant national defense activities. Amtrak's Northeast Corridor (NEC) is the busiest passenger rail corridor in the United States (US). The US Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration have designated NEC as the country's highest priority route for upgrading high-speed rail. In addition, freight service is a vital economic driver; a single train can carry the freight of several hundred trucks, reducing highway gridlock, the cost of maintaining existing highways, and the need to build expensive new ones. Unfortunately, many of the region's rail bridges are old and exhibit unusual characteristics due to wear and tear. This report presents the health monitoring methodologies for structural safety and integrity of old railroad bridges, using material study, field-testing and computational modeling. The report starts with a description of the dynamic structural theory of railroad bridges due to moving vehicles. Then, the tensile tests performed on original materials from the bridge replaced during maintenance are discussed, including the analysis of test results in accordance with ASTM specifications. Subsequently, the time-and frequency-domain analyses of the bridge response data recorded during the field tests on the selected bridges to extract the dynamic structural response characteristics of the bridge structure are described. Finally, detailed descriptions of Finite Element (FE) models of the respective bridges are given, and the results of FE simulations are compared against those obtained from the field data. The outcome is a correlation between the field test data and the predictions of the dynamic theory of bridge spans under moving vehicle loads. Interpretations of the field test observations using theoretical results are provided. The material tensile test results have shown consistency with values recommended by the design codes. Similarly, the results presented here have shown a reasonable agreement between the theoretical values, field test data and computational models. The methodology presented in this report can be applied to better understand and help mitigate dynamic structural problems encountered in typical railroad bridges.
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0736a0dd07c979f181fb0c7884e3f4dacb1f2a2515d4b586ff5440ea0919962c30414ef3aca04a19f790772a221db9caf5f152700e2487e45d0d9415bbecf33a
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/88706/dot_88706_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 98.69 MB ]