Possibility of Bridge Inspection through Drive-By Vehicles

Based on virtual simulations of vehicle–bridge interactions, the possibility of detecting stiffness reduction damages in bridges through vehicle responses was tested in two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) settings. Short-Time Fourier Transformation (STFT) was used to process vehicles’ acceleration data obtained through the 2D and 3D virtual simulations. The energy band variation of the vehicle acceleration time history was found strongly related to damage parameters. More importantly, the vehicle’s initial entering conditions are critical in obtaining correct vehicle responses through the vehicle bridge interaction models. The offset distance needed before executing the vehicle–bridge interaction (VBI) modeling was obtained through different road profile roughness levels. Through the above breakthroughs in VBI modeling, the presented study provides a new and integrated method for drive-by bridge inspection.