Development of a low-cost structural health monitoring system applied to wooden bridges as a management tool

Rural roads and bridges are fundamental to outflow agricultural products and promoting the local population mobility. In rural areas or forests, with scarce construction resources, are common to design bridges using wood in order to reduce the demanded energy to produce then. That kind of infrastructure systems, present low structural stiffness, durability and reliability, due the wood inherent mechanical properties variability and hygroscopicity. In this way, the inspection, monitoring and maintenance programs become extremely important. The Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) techniques can be employed to solve these issues. However, depending on the structure size, location and number of monitoring points, the monitoring process becomes considerably costly, especially if the bridges is located difficult access, such as forests. Therefore, as a management tool, the use of low-cost monitoring systems can be an alternative for the implementation of maintenance programs for this type of structure, in more distant rural areas. The present research was developed with the objective of proposing, developing and evaluating a low-cost data acquisition system for SHM to be applied in bridges on rural roads or forest areas. The low-cost data acquisition system for SHM of bridges was developed and subsequently validated in the laboratory and posteriorly under field conditions. As an important conclusion, the proposed low-cost system can be indicated for the establishment of maintenance programs, as well as being used for the implementation of conservation programs and management support, considering the applicability and limitation observed in the present research.