Post-Event Damage Assessment and Capacity Estimation

Newport Sensors, Inc. has developed a software platform based on a number of damage assessment algorithms that use structural stiffness and/or damping as a health index. As a structure suffers from damage by natural or man-mad disasters, the structural stiffness will degrade and damping will increase, that will result in a change of vibration characteristic of the structures. Therefore, the structural damage and its location can be identified by detecting change in structural stiffness and damping from measured structural vibration data. The remaining structural capacity can be further assessed based on the damage assessment results. The algorithms have been validated by seismic shaking table tests of large-scale multi-span multi-bent concrete bridges.