Lessons from Bridge Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Their Implications for the Development of Cyber-Physical Systems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a well written paper by leaders in the filed. I recommend publication as is. 

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS’ COMMENTS

First, we would like to thank the reviewers for the careful and thorough reading of this manuscript and for the thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions, which helped to improve the quality of this manuscript. All the changes in the manuscript are highlighted in red in the revised document to facilitate the review process. The authors hope they were able to fully address the concerns of the reviewers and properly respond to their comments.

REVIEWER 1

Comment: This is a well written paper by leaders in the filed. I recommend publication as is.

Reply: Thank you. We really appreciate the time invested by all reviewers in assessing this manuscript and their kind remarks on its value.

Reviewer 2 Report

First of all, thank you so much for writing one paper like this to show the importance of SHM in Infrastructures.

As you know, applying the SHM to bridges or other structures allows for the timely or early detection of issues, enabling early assessment. This, in turn, significantly reduces maintenance costs.

My suggestions are as following:

1.Please modify the tables and figures in the manuscript, as they are not good enough to be placed in the manuscript.

2. After reading the whole manuscript, I cannot grasp the main idea of the manuscript. The most important part is Advance Cyber-Physical Systems, or SHM and its applications?

3. Based on Q 2, if the former is the key point, it should be addressed, if not, the latter should be addressed.

4. The conclusion should tell us based on part 1 to 10, what you most want to let us know.

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS’ COMMENTS

First, we would like to thank the reviewers for the careful and thorough reading of this manuscript and for the thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions, which helped to improve the quality of this manuscript. All the changes in the manuscript are highlighted in red in the revised document to facilitate the review process. The authors hope they were able to fully address the concerns of the reviewers and properly respond to their comments.

REVIEWER 2

First of all, thank you so much for writing one paper like this to show the importance of SHM in Infrastructures.

As you know, applying the SHM to bridges or other structures allows for the timely or early detection of issues, enabling early assessment. This, in turn, significantly reduces maintenance costs.

My suggestions are as following:

Comment 1. Please modify the tables and figures in the manuscript, as they are not good enough to be placed in the manuscript.

Reply: Thank you for all the comments provided. All Figures and Tables have been reworked to a consistent level of quality.

Comment 2. After reading the whole manuscript, I cannot grasp the main idea of the manuscript. The most important part is Advance Cyber-Physical Systems, or SHM and its applications?

Reply: The manuscript aims to discuss how effective SHM systems need to be designed and implemented, as well as the intricate relation between SHM and intelligent infrastructures. Lessons learned from SHM of bridges are quite relevant for Advanced Cyber-Physical Systems of the future.

Comment 3. Based on Q2, if the former is the key point, it should be addressed, if not, the latter should be addressed.

Reply: The writers’ experiences and focus has been on SHM which is the focus of the manuscript. However, there are no current standards that define the minimum scope of SHM. For example, a short-term bridge loading test with some measurements may be considered SHM by some researchers. The writers’ experience and discussions in the paper regard real-time, multi-modal image and large data integration and interpretation for structural condition, performance, and health. Such applications directly lead into the design and applications of cyber-physical systems that will pave the way to intelligent infrastructures and cities.

Comment 4. The conclusion should tell us based on part 1 to 10, what you most want to let us know.

Reply: We truly appreciate the feedback. The Conclusions have been extended to summarize the intended contribution of the present paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see the attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS’ COMMENTS

First, we would like to thank the reviewers for the careful and thorough reading of this manuscript and for the thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions, which helped to improve the quality of this manuscript. All the changes in the manuscript are highlighted in red in the revised document to facilitate the review process. The authors hope they were able to fully address the concerns of the reviewers and properly respond to their comments.

REVIEWER 3

Thanks to the authors for the valuable information, they put in the text. I’ve learnt a lot from it. The authors addressed some of the recent design and implementation of SHM system. They discussed the advantages and barrier during the design and implementation of SHM. The information in the paper shows the deep knowledge of the authors in this field. I have few comments for this paper:

Comment 1: To me, it was not like lessons from 40 years of research and work on SHM. I think it was kind of providing knowledge to develop an integrated SHM system and the advantages and barriers during this work. So I recommend to change the title and choose a more suitable title such as “the general procedure of developing an integrated SHM system for a smart city” or other titles.

Reply: The title has been revised as suggested by the reviewer.

Comment 2: France and USA also provide a code to have a standard assessment for bridge. For example: AASHTO, Guidelines for Bridge Management Systems, https://bookstore.transportation.org/item_details.aspx?id=343 or “AASHTOWare Bridge Management, a BMS software sponsored by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration for the management of highway networks”. I think addressing them could enrich the paper. I did not see it in the paper. If you already have it in the paper, then ignore it.

Reply: The policy needs for SHM are better described and the suggested reference has been included.

Comment 3: Authors mentioned a lot of barriers for the implementation of a SHM system. I believe the biggest barrier is the economic calculation hidden in the codes to accept a certain level of risk. Maybe governments prefer to have a certain level of safety and make a balance between people’s life and the economics. So, perhaps, providing a parameter called important factor for bridges could help government to understand which bridges should have SHM systems and which of them can be ignored. This helps them to save more money.

Reply: The writers advocate that major bridges that cost $10’s of Millions and more, certainly deserve SHM as part of their design, construction, operation, and maintenance. This is now included in the conclusions. Moreover, some attempts for prioritization of SHM reported in codes and guidelines are discussed in Section 9.

I hope the paper gets an acceptance after answering the above major comments.

Reply: We appreciate the time invested in reviewing this manuscript. We hope the following provides appropriate responses to all your comments.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The concerns are addressed in detail. It can be accepted as the present form.