Health monitoring of a bridge system using strong motion data

In this paper, the acceptability of system identification results for health monitoring of instrumented bridges is addressed. This is conducted by comparing the confidence intervals of identified modal parameters for a bridge in California, namely Truckee I80/Truckee river bridge, with the change of these parameters caused by several damage scenarios. A challenge to the accuracy of the identified modal parameters involves consequences regarding the damage detection and health monitoring, as some of the identified modal information is essentially not useable for acquiring a reliable damage diagnosis of the bridge system. Use of strong motion data has limitations that should not be ignored. The results and conclusions underline these limitations while presenting the opportunities offered by system identification using strong motion data for better understanding and monitoring the health of bridge systems.