Research on bridge safety early warning method based on strain energy theory and health monitoring data

Bridges are technology-intensive and heavily invested permanent infrastructure. After completion and opening to traffic, bridge structures are easy to be affected by factors such as traffic load and atmospheric environment. Therefore, it is necessary to do safety warning and evaluation of bridges, especially the abnormal behavior in the early stages of bridge operation. In this research paper, a large-span continuous rigid frame bridge installed with the health monitoring system (HMS), of which a large amount of health monitoring data are collected by the HMS, is used as an example, and then a bridge safety early warning method is proposed when the bridge is during early operating period. First of all, the research finding that the internal stress of the prototype bridge obeys normal distribution through statistical analysis is used; next, we deduce that the strain energy inside the prototype bridge is subject to the Non-central Chi-square distribution combined with the strain energy and statistical theories; in the end, the key probability density distribution function of strain energy and its parameters are derived by using the key stress distribution function of the high performance concrete C50 strength grade used in the prototype bridge. The method recommended in this paper is conducive to the formulation of bridge preventive maintenance strategies.