Experimental investigation on the feasibility of drive-by pavement roughness and bridge vibration monitoring

This study investigates the feasibility of utilizing vehicle accelerations both for bridge condition monitoring and for pavement roughness monitoring, so called drive-by monitoring. This approach copes with disadvantages caused by deployment and maintenance of the vibration sensors on bridges that is generally costly and time-consuming. Another aim of this study is to utilize accelerations of the vehicle for pavement roughness monitoring instead of utilizing data from an expensive sensor system. In this study, laboratory experiments are carried out to investigate feasibility of identifying pavement roughness from the acceleration of the same vehicle used in the drive-by monitoring. This study also discusses the feasibility of bridge monitoring by extracting bridge frequencies from vehicle acceleration. Observations from the laboratory experiment showed the feasibility of detecting the damage of bridge. The roadway surface profile paved on the experimental bridge was also successfully identified although the accuracy was affected by the vehicle speed.