The role of terrestrial 3D LiDAR scan in bridge health monitoring

This paper addresses the potential applications of terrestrial 3D LiDAR scanning technologies for bridge monitoring. High resolution ground-based optical-photonic images from LiDAR scans can provide detailed geometric information about a bridge. Applications of simple algorithms can retrieve damage information from the geometric point cloud data, which can be correlated to possible damage quantification including concrete mass loss due to vehicle collisions, large permanent steel deformations, and surface erosions. However, any proposed damage detection technologies should provide information that is relevant and useful to bridge managers for their decision making process. This paper summaries bridge issues that can be detected from the 3D LiDAR technologies, establishes the general approach in using 3D point clouds for damage evaluation and suggests possible bridge state ratings that can be used as supplements to existing bridge management systems (BMS).