Scour Evaluation of Bridge Foundations Using Vibration Measurement

The exposure of bridge foundations due to scouring has been recognized as the most critical cause for highway bridge failures in Taiwan, yet difficulties have been found to identify its risk level. In an effort to develop an efficient measure for the detection and estimation of the scour of bridge foundations, a series of field vibration measurements were conducted on selected highway bridges of which the foundations had been suffered different levels of scouring. In this paper, theoretical background of utilizing vibration measurement to estimate the exposure of bridge foundation is introduced. The setup of vibration measurement on bridges and schemes of data processing are described. Results of the mentioned field tests on bridges are presented, and the feasibility of using vibration measurement to evaluate the scour of bridge foundations is thus verified. The findings of this study are helpful in developing the inspection and monitoring technology for bridge scouring.