Bridges

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of bridges has many short- and long-term benefits including increasing reliability, safety and cost-effective maintenance and operation of road networks. The Technical Services branch of Transport for NSW (TfNSW) is a pioneer in real time SHM of bridges in Australia and has in-house capability to carry out SHM. TfNSW has carried out several types of bridge load testing since 1995 and made significant improvements in the asset management space by installing smarter sensors and high productive hardware. Recently, installation of surveillance cameras (CCTV) and remote access to cloud-based data acquisition platforms along with real time SHM at critical bridge sites has improved the management of High-Performance Vehicles (HPV) on road network. These vehicles include five axle 60T cranes, 79T A-Double/Road trains to support post emergency response including Covid 19, 109T Super Doubles in Port Botany. Additionally, SHM when paired with wind gauges, has reduced the risk from high wind during repainting of steel truss bridges without strengthening.

The major finding from TfNSW's load testing in conjunction with SHM is that bridges built to last several decades can be re-rated to a higher load rating without strengthening or posting load limits. The SHM demonstrates the risk faced by asset owners and helps in managing that risk by providing a more accurate reflection of the condition of the asset. This saves substantial costs for TfNSW from upgrading and repainting of many old steel bridges while minimising disruption to freight productivity. TfNSW's load testing team is working towards digitisation, improved data analytics, smart sensors, and instrumentation by drone.