Data Set from Ambient Vibration Monitoring and Static Loading of a Steel Stringer Bridge Subject to Imposed Damage for Structural Health Monitoring and Damage Detection

The development and application of structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques for performance monitoring and structural integrity assessment of highway bridges has received significant attention from both industry practitioners and academic researchers over the last several decades. One of the challenges in advancing the state of practice is the limited availability of measurements from full-scale structures with known damage, which are necessary to validate SHM methodologies. This challenge is further complicated by a wide variation in bridge designs and topologies, which can lead to significantly different static and dynamic responses; as a result, tailored SHM approaches are required for specific bridge types. This paper presents an experimental data set acquired from an instrumented steel stringer bridge prior to and following mechanically imposed damages. The data set includes acceleration time histories obtained under vehicle passes and strain measurements acquired during static loading of the span with a truck positioned at three prescribed locations. A survey of field tests conducted on full-scale bridges for the investigation of structural health monitoring methodologies is provided to highlight the infrequent occurrence of such testing and the limited availability of data from these experiments. The bridge span and instrumentation used in the test program are then described in detail with supporting drawings. The type, location, and severity of damages imposed on the structure are presented along with a description of the monitoring campaign. The paper provides a summary of the hierarchical format of the open-access data file provided by the authors and the metadata contained in the file.