Accurate measurements of gross vehicle weight through bridge weigh-in-motion: a case study

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karim Helmi ◽  
Baidar Bakht ◽  
Aftab Mufti
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene OBrien ◽  
Muhammad Arslan Khan ◽  
Daniel Patrick McCrum ◽  
Aleš Žnidarič

This paper develops a novel method of bridge damage detection using statistical analysis of data from an acceleration-based bridge weigh-in-motion (BWIM) system. Bridge dynamic analysis using a vehicle-bridge interaction model is carried out to obtain bridge accelerations, and the BWIM concept is applied to infer the vehicle axle weights. A large volume of traffic data tends to remain consistent (e.g., most frequent gross vehicle weight (GVW) of 3-axle trucks); therefore, the statistical properties of inferred vehicle weights are used to develop a bridge damage detection technique. Global change of bridge stiffness due to a change in the elastic modulus of concrete is used as a proxy of bridge damage. This approach has the advantage of overcoming the variability in acceleration signals due to the wide variety of source excitations/vehicles—data from a large number of different vehicles can be easily combined in the form of inferred vehicle weight. One year of experimental data from a short-span reinforced concrete bridge in Slovenia is used to assess the effectiveness of the new approach. Although the acceleration-based BWIM system is inaccurate for finding vehicle axle-weights, it is found to be effective in detecting damage using statistical analysis. It is shown through simulation as well as by experimental analysis that a significant change in the statistical properties of the inferred BWIM data results from changes in the bridge condition.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 610-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Longwei Zhang ◽  
Hua Zhao ◽  
Eugene J OBrien ◽  
Xudong Shao

This article outlines a Virtual Monitoring approach for fatigue life assessment of orthotropic steel deck bridges. Bridge weigh-in-motion was used to calculate traffic loads which were then used to calculate “virtual” strains. Some of these strains were checked through long-term monitoring of dynamic strain data. Field tests, incorporating calibration with pre-weighed trucks and monitoring the response to regular traffic, were conducted at Fochen Bridge, which has an orthotropic steel deck and is located in Foshan City, China. In the calibration tests, a 45-t 3-axle truck ran repeatedly across Lane 2, the middle lane in a 3-lane carriageway. The results show that using an influence surface to weigh vehicles can improve the accuracy of the weights and, by inference, of remaining service life calculations. The most fatigue-prone position was found to be at the cutout in the diaphragms. Results show that many vehicles are overweight—the maximum gross vehicle weight recorded was 148 t, nearly 3.6 times heavier than the fatigue design truck.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 11-22
Author(s):  
Sergio Lobo Aguilar ◽  
Richard E. Christenson

Bridge Weigh-In-Motion (BWIM) has been demonstrated to be reliable for obtaining critical information about the characteristics of trucks that travel over the highways. Continued improvements provides greater opportunity for increased use of BWIM. Traditional BWIM systems based on measuring the bending strain of the bridge have various challenges which has led to a class of BWIM methodologies that employ the use of shear strain in determining the gross vehicle weight (GVW) of crossing trucks. However, the known techniques of these shear-strain BWIM methods assume or measure the shear influence line for the calculation of the GVW. In this paper, an alternative shear-strain based BWIM technique is proposed. The method presented here is independent of the influence line, does not require a measurement of the speed of the truck, and is based on the difference in magnitude observed at the discontinuity of the shear strain record as a truck crosses over the sensor location on the bridge. A series of field tests is presented that demonstrate this shear-strain based BWIM method has error levels consistent with other more complex BWIM methods and as such has great potential to be used for determining the GVWs of trucks that travel on simple or multispan bridges in a consistent and reliable manner.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (23) ◽  
pp. 8046
Author(s):  
Piotr Burnos ◽  
Janusz Gajda ◽  
Ryszard Sroka ◽  
Monika Wasilewska ◽  
Cezary Dolega

In many countries, work is being conducted to introduce Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) systems intended for continuous and automatic control of gross vehicle weight. Such systems are also called WIM systems for direct enforcement (e-WIM). The achievement of introducing e-WIM systems is conditional on ensuring constant, known, and high-accuracy dynamic weighing of vehicles. WIM systems weigh moving vehicles, and on this basis, they estimate static parameters, i.e., static axle load and gross vehicle weight. The design and principle of operation of WIM systems result in their high sensitivity to many disturbing factors, including climatic factors. As a result, weighing accuracy fluctuates during system operation, even in the short term. The article presents practical aspects related to the identification of factors disturbing measurement in WIM systems as well as methods of controlling, improving and stabilizing the accuracy of weighing results. Achieving constant high accuracy in weighing vehicles in WIM systems is a prerequisite for their use in the direct enforcement mode. The research results presented in this paper are a step towards this goal.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xudong Jian

Complicated traffic scenarios, including random change of vehicles’ speed and lane, as well as the simultaneous presence of multiple vehicles on bridge, are main obstacles that prevents bridge weigh-in-motion (BWIM) technique from reliable and accurate application. To tackle the complicated traffic problems of BWIM, this paper develops a novel BWIM method which integrates deep-learning-based computer vision technique and bridge influence surface theory. In this study, bridge strains and traffic videos are recorded synchronously as the data source of BWIM. The computer vision technique is employed to detect and track vehicles and corresponding axles from traffic videos so that spatio-temporal paths of vehicle loads on the bridge can be obtained. Then a novel method is proposed to identify the strain influence surface (SIS) of the bridge structure based on the time-synchronized strain signals and vehicle paths. After the SIS is identified, the axle weight (AW) and gross vehicle weight (GVW) can be identified by integrating the SIS, time-synchronized bridge strain, and vehicle paths. For illustration and verification, the proposed method is applied to identify AW and GVW in scale model experiments, in which the vehicle-bridge system is designed with high fidelity, and various complicated traffic scenarios are simulated. Results confirm that the proposed method contributes to improve the existing BWIM technique with respect to complicated traffic scenarios.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teerachai Deesomsuk ◽  
Tospol Pinkaew

The effectiveness of vehicle weight estimations from bridge weigh-in-motion system is studied. The measured bending moments of the instrumented bridge under a passage of vehicle are numerically simulated and are used as the input for the vehicle weight estimations. Two weight estimation methods assuming constant magnitudes and time-varying magnitudes of vehicle axle loads are investigated. The appropriate number of bridge elements and sampling frequency are considered. The effectiveness in term of the estimation accuracy is evaluated and compared under various parameters of vehicle-bridge system. The effects of vehicle speed, vehicle configuration, vehicle weight and bridge surface roughness on the accuracy of the estimated vehicle weights are intensively investigated. Based on the obtained results, vehicle speed, surface roughness level and measurement error seem to have stronger effects on the weight estimation accuracy than other parameters. In general, both methods can provide quite accurate weight estimation of the vehicle. Comparing between them, although the weight estimation method assuming constant magnitudes of axle loads is faster, the method assuming time-varying magnitudes of axle loads can provide axle load histories and exhibits more accurate weight estimations of the vehicle for almost of the considered cases.


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