New damage-locating method for bridges subjected to a moving load

A new damage-locating method for bridges subjected to a moving load is presented, and a new ‘moving load damage-locating indicator’ (MLDI) is introduced. A vehicle is modeled as a moving load, the bridge is simplified as an Euler-Bernoulli beam, and the damage is simulated by a reduction of stiffness properties of the elements. The curvature and MLDI values at each node of the baseline model (undamaged) and the damage model are computed respectively. Then the damage or damages can be located from a sudden change of the MLDI value. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are validated by numerical simulation. The results indicate that the method is effective, being able to not only locate a single damage accurately, but also locate multiple damages in simply-supported bridges, including multiple damages in continuous bridges. The results also indicate that the MLDI can accurately locate damages under 5% measurement noise.