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Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures

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A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Civil Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 17952

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Guojin Tan

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Guest Editor

College of Transportation, Jilin University, No. 5988 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China
Interests: small and medium span bridge detection; bridge reliability assessment and reinforcement; bridge structural dynamics; performance evaluation of existing bridge structure
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Chunli Wu

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Guest Editor

College of Transportation, Jilin University, NO. 5988 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China
Interests: structural health monitoring; bridge damage identification; reliability analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Tao Yang

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Guest Editor

School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
Interests: steel-concrete composite structures; progressive collapse; seismic performance; behaviors of prefabricated composite structures
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Xin He

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Guest Editor

College of Transportation, Jilin University, NO. 5988 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China
Interests: reliability analysis; bridge damage identification; bridge structural health monitoring; bridge structural dynamics

Dr. Wensheng Wang

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Guest Editor

College of Transportation, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China
Interests: nondestructive testing technology; structural health monitoring; bridge and infrastructure engineering; road materials and pavement design
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is widely acknowledged that structural design, new construction technology, maintenance, monitoring and testing remain core links in the civil engineering. These aspects can be achieved by various means and technologies, including the use of modern automation and information technologies of planning, organizing, construction, and maintenance processes. The societal and ecological conditions change rapidly, which are experiencing increasing impacts from changes in the climate, including natural and anthropogenic disasters such as flooding, earthquake, drought, erosion, landslides, heatwaves, and air pollution. Green construction is considered one of the most effective ways to deal with the sustainability. Moreover, environment induced deterioration, improper maintenance, and increasing occurrence of natural or human-made disasters have intimately affected the civil structures and infrastructures including bridges, building structures, tunnels etc. It is of great significance to monitor in real time and test the performance of civil structures at regular intervals, in order to improve the operational efficiency of the civil structures. With the development of advanced sensing, signal processing, and damage detection methods, structural health monitoring (SHM) technology and non-destructive testing (NDT) technology have been widely implemented in practical civil structures, which are used to assist decision making for maintenance, rehabilitation, and retrofit of existing civil structures. This Special Issue seeks to gather a series of manuscripts to advance the frontiers of construction, maintenance, SHM and NDT in civil structures and infrastructures.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Advances in BIM-based design in civil engineering;
Development, design and analysis of novel and complex civil structures;
Structural sensing and sustainable infrastructure maintenance;
Structural reliability analysis and maintenance management;
Structural health monitoring in civil engineering;
Diagnostics and nondestructive testing in civil structures and infrastructures.

Prof. Dr. Guojin Tan
Prof. Dr. Chunli Wu
Prof. Dr. Tao Yang
Dr. Xin He
Prof. Dr. Wensheng Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

civil structure and infrastructure
building information modeling
artificial intelligence/machine learning/deep learning
green buildings
seismic assessment
structural analysis and design
safety and reliability assessment
structural health monitoring
non-destructive testing
lifetime management

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

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2 pages, 163 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Special Issue on Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-Destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures

by Wensheng Wang, Guojin Tan, Tao Yang, Chunli Wu and Xin He

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(19), 10189; https://doi.org/10.3390/app121910189 - 10 Oct 2022

Viewed by 1261

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that structural design, new construction technology, maintenance, monitoring and testing remain core aspects of civil engineering [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

18 pages, 8718 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Time-Dependent Reliability Assessment Method for RC Simply Supported T-Beam Bridges Based on Lateral Load Distribution Influenced by Reinforcement Corrosion

by Xin He, Guojin Tan, Wenchao Chu, Wensheng Wang and Qingwen Kong

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(14), 7028; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12147028 - 12 Jul 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1350

Abstract

The safety and reliability of bridges gradually decrease over time under the influence of disadvantageous environmental factors, primarily due to reinforcement corrosion caused by chloride ingress. The traditional lateral load distribution (LLD) theory does not consider the influence of corrosion, which degrades the accuracy of bridge performance and reliability calculation. A time-dependent reliability assessment method for simply supported T-beam bridges is proposed in this paper, which considers the influence of reinforcement corrosion on LLD. Firstly, the steel corrosion process and degree are predicted based on the chloride ingress model, into which the water/cement ratio and concrete strength are innovatively introduced in order to improve the prediction accuracy. Secondly, the effective stiffness calculation method for corroded reinforcement bridges is established with the moment of inertia and section crack condition employed. Thirdly, the modified eccentric compression method is improved by the effective stiffness and iterative algorithm, which is suitable for the LLD calculation of corroded reinforcement bridges. The time-dependent vehicle load effect can be computed combined with the probability distribution of live load. Finally, the time-dependent reliability of the flexural bearing capacity is obtained by the Monte Carlo method and Bayesian theory without prior information. A simply supported bridge with five T-beams is taken as an example for analysis. It is indicated that the results calculated by the traditional reliability method are conservative, which cannot make a true and accurate evaluation. The method proposed in this paper can effectively reduce the assessment error caused by model uncertainty while considering the interaction between reinforcement corrosion and vehicle live load effect. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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13 pages, 4599 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Parameter Identification of Structures with Different Connections Using Static Responses

by Feng Xiao, Weiwei Zhu, Xiangwei Meng and Gang S. Chen

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(12), 5896; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12125896 - 09 Jun 2022

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2143

Abstract

This paper presents a parameter-identification method for rod structures with different connections. In this method, the parameters of the structure are adjusted to match its analytical and measured displacements. The damage identification for truss structure and rigid frame were investigated. Previous studies often considered the cross-sectional area damage or joint damage; there are few studies on the simultaneous existence of these two types of damage. In this study, damage identification for a rigid frame with both cross-sectional and joint damage was performed. Based on the measured displacements, the proposed method can accurately identify the cross-sectional and joint damage for a rigid frame. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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16 pages, 17487 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study of the Healing Effect of Concrete with Supplementary Cementitious Materials after Early-Age Damage by Acoustic Emission Technique

by Zhonggou Chen, Rui He and Xianyu Jin

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(12), 5871; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12125871 - 09 Jun 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1187

Abstract

The study on the influence of early age damage of concrete on its long-term strength development is of great importance. In this work, 102 concrete cubes with and without supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) were prepared. The pre-loading with loading degrees of 20%, 50%, and 80% of the corresponding compressive strength at 3-, 7-, 14-, and 28 d age was applied to the concrete samples. Then, concrete samples were further cured to 270 d, and the compressive strength was tested by the uniaxial compression test. The acoustic emission signals during the compressive strength test were collected. It is found that the pozzolanic reaction healed the damage caused by the early age damage, and the compressive strength of concrete with the incorporation of SCMs at 270 d age after pre-loading was higher than that of ordinary concrete without SCMs. The peak frequency of the uniaxial compression acoustic emission of concrete can be divided into four frequency intervals to correspond to different damage mechanisms of concrete, namely: interval I (12 ± 5 kHz), interval II (38 ± 5 kHz), interval III (171 ± 5 kHz), interval IV (259 ± 5 kHz). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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20 pages, 4784 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On-Site Full-Scale Load Test and Reliability Evaluation of Prefabricated Bridge Substructure for “Pile–Column Integration”

by Hua Wang, Longlin Wang, Kailv Yang, Shuzhi Xie, Gangrong Wei, Ruijiao Li and Wensheng Wang

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(11), 5520; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12115520 - 29 May 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1626

Abstract

The application of prefabricated bridge structures is of great significance to building industrialization, which can realize the green construction and maintenance process of low energy consumption and low emission as well as the normal operation of transportation in time, and effectively realize the green development requirements. However, the substructure of a conventional prefabricated bridge usually needs to cast a bearing platform between pier and column, and may not give full play to the advantages of prefabricated bridge construction. Given the engineering characteristics that most of the pile foundations in the bridge design of this engineering project are end-bearing piles, in which the pile foundation is not deep and the pile column is not high, the assembly process of “pile–column integration” has been proposed in this study. Aiming at the reconstruction and expansion project of the Qinzhou–Beihai section in the Lanzhou–Haikou expressway, the test site with representative geological conditions was firstly selected. The pile–column structure of the bridge can be completed by prefabricated pile foundation, pier, and cap beam based on the integral assembly installation method. The vertical compressive static load test, horizontal static load test, and reliability test of pile–column connection were introduced in detail to analyze whether the bearing capacity and connection effect of pile–column can meet the requirements. Test results showed that the limit value and corresponding characteristic value of the vertical compressive bearing capacity and horizontal critical load of a single pile could meet the design requirements. The displacement curve of single pile No. 5 at the flange connection position under various loads of the test pile does not have an obvious angle break, and there is no sudden change in the slope, indicating that the flange connection quality is good. Due to many interference factors and some abnormal strain measurement data, the strain data are suggested as auxiliary to the displacement results. The findings of static load testing and connection reliability in this study proved the feasibility of this prefabricated bridge substructure “pile–column integration”, which can provide a reference for the rapid construction of bridges. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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12 pages, 1264 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Improved Static Residual Force Algorithm and Its Application in Cable Damage Identification for Cable-Stayed Bridges

by Rui Fang, Yanting Wu, Wang Wei, Li Na, Qian Biao, Ping Jiang and Qiuwei Yang

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(6), 2945; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12062945 - 14 Mar 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1455

Abstract

For cable-stayed bridges, cables are very important components to maintain the safety of the whole bridge structure. It is well-known that change in cable force reflects the health of the cable-stayed bridge. Therefore, it is necessary to detect and quantify local damage in cables prior to the occurrence of a failure. To this end, an improved residual force algorithm independent of static load vector was proposed in this study. The proposed method mainly makes use of the particularity that only a few coefficients in the residual force and static load vectors are nonzero. By combining two different static loading modes, a new damage indicator vector was defined in the method for damage localization and quantification. Compared with existing static residual force methods, the significant advantage of the proposed algorithm is that the specific value and loading position of the static load are not required in the damage identification process. This special advantage causes this method to not require special static loading, but instead uses any load vehicle. This advantage can make the operation process of structural damage identification based on static tests easier and faster. A single tower cable-stayed bridge structure was used to verify the feasibility of the proposed method in cable damage identification. It was shown that the proposed method successfully identified cable damage, even if the value and loading point of the static load were uncertain. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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17 pages, 5070 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Evaluation of a Long-Span Cable-Stayed Bridge Using Non-Destructive Field Loading Tests

by Xirui Wang, Longlin Wang, Hua Wang, Yihao Ning, Kainan Huang and Wensheng Wang

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(5), 2367; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12052367 - 24 Feb 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2334

Abstract

As an important part of the transportation network, the reliability of bridge structures is of great significance to people’s personal safety, as well as to the national economy. In order to evaluate the performance of complex bridge structures, their mechanical behavior and fundamental characteristics need to be studied. Structural health monitoring (SHM) has been introduced into bridge engineering, and the structural response assessment, load effects monitoring, and reliability evaluation have been developed based on the collected SHM information. In this study, a performance evaluation method for complex bridge structures based on non-destructive field loading tests is proposed. The cable-stayed bridge in Guangxi with the largest span (Pingnan Xiangsizhou Bridge) was selected as the research object, and loading on the main girder was transferred to the piers and tower through the stay cables, whose structural responses are critical in the process of bridge operation. Therefore, the field loading tests—including deflection and strain testing of the main girder, as well as cable force tests—were also conducted for Pingnan Xiangsizhou Bridge by using non-destructive measurement techniques (multifunctional static strain test system, radar interferometric deformation measurement technology, etc.). Based on the numerically simulated results of a finite element model for Pingnan Xiangsizhou Bridge, reasonable field loading test conditions and loading arrangement were determined. Non-destructive field loading test results showed that the quality of the bridge’s construction is up to standard, due to a good agreement between the calculated and measured frequencies of the bridge. In addition, the calibration coefficients of displacement and strain were less than 1, indicating that Pingnan Xiangsizhou Bridge has satisfactory stiffness and strength. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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26 pages, 62510 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Data Loss Recovery Technique Using EMD-BiGRU Algorithm for Structural Health Monitoring

by Die Liu, Yihao Bao, Yingying He and Likai Zhang

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(21), 10072; https://doi.org/10.3390/app112110072 - 27 Oct 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2106

Abstract

Missing data caused by sensor faults is a common problem in structural health monitoring systems. Due to negative effects, many methods that adopt measured data to infer missing data have been proposed to tackle this problem in previous studies. However, capturing complex correlations from measured data remains a significant challenge. In this study, empirical mode decomposition (EMD) combined with a bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) is proposed for the recovery of the measured data. The proposed EMD-BiGRU converts the missing data task as predicted task of time sequence. The core of the method is to predict missing data using the raw data and decomposed subsequence as the decomposed subsequence can improve the predicted accuracy. In addition, the BiGRU in the hybrid model can extract the pre-post correlations of subsequence compared with traditional artificial neural networks. Raw acceleration data collected from a three-story structure are used to evaluate the performance of the EMD-BiGRU for missing data imputation. The recovery results of measure data show that the EMD-BiGRU exhibits excellent performance from two perspectives. First, the decomposed subsequence can improve the accuracy of the BiGRU predicted model. Second, the BiGRU outperforms other machine learning algorithms because it captures more microscopic changes of measured data. The experimental analysis suggests that the change patterns of raw measured signal data are complex, and therefore it is significant to extract the features before modeling. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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17 pages, 5379 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Intelligent Active Correction Technology and Application of Tower Displacement in Arch Bridge Cable Lifting Construction

by Nianchun Deng, Mengsheng Yu and Xinyu Yao

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(21), 9808; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11219808 - 20 Oct 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1878

Abstract

In order to control the tower deviation in the cable hoisting process of long-span concrete-filled steel tubular arch bridge during construction monitoring, a practical method of tower deviation correction was studied and established. In the paper, based on the studies about the deviation error formation mechanism of tower in the process of cable lifting, the relevant formulas of the arch rib elevation changes caused by the change of tower state were deduced. The traditional control methods including increase of tower stiffness and strength of the anchor cable, are not effective, costly, and require a longer construction period. To overcome these defects, in virtue of the Beidou GNSS measurement system and hydraulic jack active control system, the active control technology of the CFST (Concrete Filled Steel Tube) arch bridge tower deviation was thoroughly studied. Besides, a perfect active control theory was established. Finally, the author puts forward the idea of reverse pulling tower deviation. The field measurement and comparative study show that after the optimization of this method, the tower deviation is within 2 cm, and the error meets the specification requirements. The proposed method can accurately control the tower deviation in the process of arch bridge cable hoisting, and establish a set of perfect active control related systems and theories, which is especially suitable for the construction monitoring and adjustment in the construction stage of arch bridge, and can provide reference for the construction control of tower deviation of the same type of bridge. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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17 pages, 3468 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on the Precise Displacement Controlling Method for a Suspended Deck in the Hanger Replacement Process of an Arch Bridge

by Hua Wang, Longlin Wang, Xiaoli Zhuo, Kainan Huang, Xirui Wang and Wensheng Wang

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(20), 9607; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11209607 - 15 Oct 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1557

Abstract

The hanger often needs to be replaced many times during the operation period of hanger arch bridges. To ensure the safety of the hanger replacement in the construction process of pocket hanging, the structural response in the whole construction process needs to be precisely controlled. In this paper, aiming at half-through arches with a suspended deck by cable hangers, the precise displacement controlling method for hanger replacement of an arch bridge based on the pocket hanging method has been proposed. Firstly, the equivalent model of an arch bridge in the hanger replacement process is established, and the boundary conditions of the equivalent model are calculated precisely. Secondly, in the hanger replacement process, including old hanger demolition and new hanger installation, the precise displacement expressions of the suspended deck are derived on the basis of the equivalent model. Finally, the correctness and feasibility of the proposed precise displacement controlling method are verified by the hanger replacement engineering of an arch bridge. Through this research on the hanger replacement of an arch bridge, the equivalent model adopted in this paper has been proven accurate, and only partial boundary conditions need to be considered in practical engineering applications to get accurate results. Meanwhile, the calculation results are accurate enough through the practical engineering verification, and the precise displacement controlling method is feasible in the hanger replacement process of an arch bridge based on the pocket hanging method. It is also found that satisfactory results can be achieved using hanger demolition and installation by equal step length. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green Construction, Maintenance, Structural Health Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing in Complex Structures and Infrastructures)

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