VIBRATION MONITORING FOR RAILWAY BRIDGES USING PASSING TRAIN LOAD

Abstract

  The efficiency of maintenance and operation will be drastically improved, if it is possible to detect abnormality in social infrastructures at an early stage, based on the relative change of vibration characteristic, which can be identified by conducting vibration monitoring continuously. This study focuses on a railway bridge on which trains with almost the same weight run at fixed timings every day, and proposes a vibration monitoring method utilizing the passing train load. In order to examine the effectiveness of the proposed method, the authors conducted a field test targeted at two real railway bridges, identified the natural frequency and vibration mode shape of the railway bridge, and empirically demonstrated the possibility that the natural frequency could be used as an indicator for abnormality detection through a few analyses.