The smart bridge : condition monitoring for military bridges

Abstract

Online Condition Monitoring has emerged as an attractive alternative to the traditional approach of preventive maintenance. This is especially so in the civil and structural industry, where it is finding widespread application in the health monitoring of bridges and other vital infrastructures that have been converted into ‘intelligent’ systems through the incorporation of computer-linked sensors. The potential of smart structure technology to yield operational benefits, such as near-instantaneous damage detection and quantification of residual load capacity, in military bridges exposed to enemy fire, is enormous and constitutes a true combat-multiplier. This paper presents a study done using fiber optic polarimetric sensors on the SM-1 Launched Bridge.