Date of Award:

5-2012

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Marvin W. Halling

Committee

Marvin W. Halling

Committee

Paul J. Barr

Committee

Joseph A. Caliendo

Abstract

The Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) Program, under the direction of the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) Office of Infrastructure Research and Development, is monitoring nation’s pilot highway bridges to promote the safety, durability, and reliability on the bridges of the nation. Researchers at Utah State University directed dynamic testing on the New Jersey Pilot Bridge, structure number 1618-150 the summer of 2011 to analyze and understand the dynamic behavior of the structure.

In order to perform the monitoring of the bridge, ambient vibration analysis was selected for this structure, which was instrumented with an array of velocity transducers to record the response coming from the excitation, that was mainly traffic and wind loads. The dynamic properties obtained from this bridge included the modal frequencies, damping ratios and mode shapes. A finite element model was also created to compare the results from the ambient vibration testing. The results of this testing will be used with the LTBP Program to improve the knowledge of the bridge performance by tracking the changes in the properties of the bridge throughout the years and improve the next generation of bridges and bridge management in the nation.

Checksum

16886bc18eeb4ab037e5e43147a2ebd2

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on May 11, 2012.

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