Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
3.4
3.1
Journals
Buildings
Special Issues
Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Operation Maintenance of Concrete and...
share announcement

Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Operation Maintenance of Concrete and Steel Structures

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Structures".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 2738

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Demi Ai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Interests: structural health monitoring
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Hongyou Cao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Interests: structural analysis theory; structural optimization of cable-supported bridges
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Xiaowei Ye

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Interests: structural health monitoring; machine vision; shield tunnel; fatigue analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineering structures or components are often subjected to operational loadings, environmental impacts or earthquake excitations during their service life, which inevitably induce defaults and damages and consequently affect their operational performance. Structural health monitoring and intelligent operation maintenance has increasingly become an essential part of engineering structures with the aim of increasing the safety and reliability of structures through measurements of the operating and loading environment and improving the critical responses of a structure for the tracking and evaluation of incidents, anomalies or damages, along with extending the service life through in-time repairing and strengthening for performance improvement. This Special Issue aims at presenting recent advances in the structural health monitoring and intelligent operation maintenance of concrete and steel structures, particularly the monitoring/maintenance techniques enhanced by machine leaning, computational intelligence or data mining. This Special Issue will cover topics of interest that include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • Concrete/steel structural health monitoring;
  • Concrete/steel structural damage detection;
  • Concrete/steel structural safety evaluation;
  • Concrete/steel structural deformation identification;
  • Operation maintenance of concrete/steel structures;
  • Repair and strengthening of concrete/steel structures;
  • Application of machine learning for damage detection;
  • Application of machine learning for structural maintenance;
  • Application of new materials for structural repairing;
  • Application of data mining for structural monitoring.

Dr. Demi Ai
Prof. Dr. Hongyou Cao
Prof. Dr. Xiaowei Ye
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. Buildings 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 2600 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

  • concrete structures
  • steel structures
  • damage detection
  • structural health monitoring
  • intelligent operation maintenance
  • repair and strengthening
  • machine learning
  • data mining
  • building monitoring

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

16 pages, 11589 KiB  
Article
Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Welding Residual Stress of U-Rib Joints in Orthotropic Steel Bridge Decks
by Zhiqiang Huang, Wenxue Su, Jun Shi, Tao Li and Hongyou Cao
Buildings 2025, 15(2), 262; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15020262 - 17 Jan 2025
Viewed by 564
Abstract
The residual stresses at U-rib joints have a significant adverse impact on the structure. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research and analysis on their residual stresses. Based on experimental testing and thermal elastic-plastic finite element analysis (FEA), this study investigates the residual [...] Read more.
The residual stresses at U-rib joints have a significant adverse impact on the structure. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research and analysis on their residual stresses. Based on experimental testing and thermal elastic-plastic finite element analysis (FEA), this study investigates the residual stress (RS) of a U-rib joint using gas metal arc welding in an orthotropic steel bridge deck (OSBD). X-ray diffraction (XRD) was adopted to measure the RS of the U-rib welds, and the measurement results were utilized to verify the FEA. The effects of the weld root gap, weld penetration, and weld groove angle on the RS of U-rib welds were investigated by using FEA. The weld root gap had minor effect on the RS of the U-rib welds. With an increase in weld penetration, the peak values of the transverse tensile RS at both the deck plate and the U-rib weld toes increased. Additionally, an enlargement of the groove angle also resulted in a notable increase in the transverse tensile RS peak at the deck plate weld toe. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Operation Maintenance of Concrete and Steel Structures)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

24 pages, 14863 KiB  
Article
A Correlation Analysis-Based Structural Load Estimation Method for RC Beams Using Machine Vision and Numerical Simulation
by Chun Zhang, Yinjie Zhao, Guangyu Wu, Han Wu, Hongli Ding, Jian Yu and Ruoqing Wan
Buildings 2025, 15(2), 207; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15020207 - 11 Jan 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 951
Abstract
The correlation analysis between current surface cracks of structures and external loads can provide important insights into determining the structural residual bearing capacity. The classical regression assessment method based on experimental data not only relies on costly structure experiments; it also lacks interpretability. [...] Read more.
The correlation analysis between current surface cracks of structures and external loads can provide important insights into determining the structural residual bearing capacity. The classical regression assessment method based on experimental data not only relies on costly structure experiments; it also lacks interpretability. Therefore, a novel load estimation method for RC beams, based on correlation analysis between detected crack images and strain contour plots calculated by FEM, is proposed. The distinct discrepancies between crack images and strain contour figures, coupled with the stochastic nature of actual crack distributions, pose considerable challenges for load estimation tasks. Therefore, a new correlation index model is initially introduced to quantify the correlation between the two types of images in the proposed method. Subsequently, a deep neural network (DNN) is trained as a FEM surrogate model to quickly predict the structural strain response by considering material uncertainties. Ultimately, the range of the optimal load level and its confidence interval are determined via statistical analysis of the load estimations under different random fields. The validation results of RC beams under four-point bending loads show that the proposed algorithm can quickly estimate load levels based on numerical simulation results, and the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) for load estimation based solely on a single measured structural crack image is 20.68%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Operation Maintenance of Concrete and Steel Structures)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

18 pages, 6258 KiB  
Article
A Unified Deflection Theory Model for Multi-Tower Self-Anchored Suspension Bridges with Different Tower–Girder and Cable–Girder Connections
by Shiyu Guan, Dinghui Liao, Yi Zhang, Jun Shi, Shuang Liu and Hongyou Cao
Buildings 2024, 14(12), 3945; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14123945 - 11 Dec 2024
Viewed by 744
Abstract
This study presents a unified analytical model for multi-tower self-anchored suspension bridges integrating tower–girder connections (TGCs) and cable–girder connections (CGCs) within the framework of deflection theory. The connections are modeled as horizontal springs, and governing equations are derived based on force equilibrium and [...] Read more.
This study presents a unified analytical model for multi-tower self-anchored suspension bridges integrating tower–girder connections (TGCs) and cable–girder connections (CGCs) within the framework of deflection theory. The connections are modeled as horizontal springs, and governing equations are derived based on force equilibrium and compatibility conditions. A comparison with a nonlinear finite element analysis under various live load scenarios confirms the accuracy of the proposed model. A parametric analysis reveals that increasing the CGC stiffness reduces girder deflection, decreasing the maximum vertical deflection by nearly 42.3% when the stiffness is increased from 0 to infinity and moving the maximum displacement from the mid-span section to the mid-tower section. Additionally, CGCs modify the load distribution between the main cable and the girder, limiting the longitudinal displacement of the tower in which the mid-tower displacement is reduced by 45.50%. Tower–girder connections improve the anchoring of the side cable to the tower. When connection stiffness is low, side- and middle-tower stiffness significantly reduce girder deflection, though this effect decreases with increasing stiffness. Enhancing mid-tower stiffness similarly reduces its longitudinal displacement regardless of the tower–girder connection. In longitudinal floating systems, mid-tower displacement rises with increasing side-tower stiffness. Establishing a unified analysis model reveals the key parameters in the structural analysis of suspension bridges, enabling an easier and faster analysis of multi-tower self-anchored suspension bridges. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring and Intelligent Operation Maintenance of Concrete and Steel Structures)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-3
Back to TopTop