Sep 18, 2008 6:06 pm US/Central
Understanding Bridge Behaviors With New Sensors
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ―
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The new Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis opened Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008.
CBS
As drivers get their first feel from the new Interstate 35W bridge, when they driver over it more than 300 sensors are monitoring their movements.
"What we hope to gain is an understanding of the behavior of the bridge," said Dr. Cathy French an engineer from the University of Minnesota.
The sensors were cast into the concrete and measure vibrations, temperature, expansion and corrosion.
"One of the reasons we can use that information for is between inspections. You can characterize and see if anything interesting is going on with the data," French said.
On the first day of normal traffic flow, civil engineers are actually inside the bridge, studying and plotting the information relayed instantaneously from the different sensors.
"So you can try and evaluate which ones may be better predictors of performance," said French.
There are also other sensors that trigger safety features on the bridge.
"There are sensors on the deck, that when the concrete gets a certain temperature, a chemical that will come out onto the deck to de-ice the surface," said Linda Figg, president of Figg Engineering Group Inc. who designed the bridge,
The goal of the SmartBridge sensors is to improve design for the future, so a collapse, like the one Aug 1, 2007, never happens again.
"There's a growing trend from the states and public to want to better understand or have information on how bridges are performing in practice," French said.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation and the University of Minnesota are working together to gather the data to share with other states and countries.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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