Sensor-based identification of structural stiffness for the design of steel structures

Engineering structures are increasingly equipped with sensors for health monitoring. This is particularly evident in the case of infrastructure of the road traffic network, since the bridges are often subjected to higher stresses due to increased traffic volume and load intensity than considered in the original design process. In the future, "intelligent structures" equipped with sensor systems will increasingly contribute to gaining a better understanding of the load-bearing behavior and the condition of structures. The proper interpretation of monitoring data and their consideration in the design of structures is always demanding and associated with challenges, to which this article is dedicated. In this study, it is shown how sensor data can be utilized to specify the load-bearing behavior of a structure using a Bayesian approach, and how this integration can be taken into account in the semi-probabilistic safety concept of the Eurocode.