STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING OF BRIDGES IN SWEDEN

Measuring insecure parameters in constructions has taken place in the past. However, the measuring was small in scale and aimed at pure verification of desired parameters rather than for economical, security or maintenance aspects. Organized Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) activities of bridges in Sweden have begun in recent years when some innovative bridges with complicated design were constructed. Several old and/or deteriorated bridges needed upgrading and classification and benefited from SHM. Both large scale and long-term projects were initiated; as well as some more moderate projects. Planning of data acquisition, installation of sensors, data storage and analysis were very demanding and a lot of heuristic knowledge was gathered. New techniques were also introduced and some preliminary fibre optic installations took place. A lot of practical experience was obtained when working in the field with fibre optic sensors, especially when handling distributed fibre optic sensors. This paper introduces some projects and results in short, and highlights conclusions. Special care is paid to reasons for monitoring, issues in planning, monitoring and practices in fibre optic installation procedures.