Integrity Monitoring of An Old Steel Bridge Using Brillouin Scattering (CAT#: STEM-ST-0159-YJL)

Introduction

Being one of the three communication line that connects two sides of the Gota river, Götaälvbron is the bridge of high importance for the Gothenburg city (Sweden). The bridge is more than 1000 meters (~33000 feet) long and consists of concrete slab poured on nine steel continuous girders supported on more than 50 columns. During the last maintenance works, number of cracks was found in steel girders, notable in zones above columns where the important negative bending moments are present. These cracks are consequences of fatigue over long years of service and mediocre quality of the steel.
The bridge is now repaired and the bridge authorities would like to keep it in service for the next 15 years, but new cracks due to fatigue can occur again. These new cracks can lead to collapse of cracked girders which may occur suddenly since damage is generated by fatigue. That was the reason to perform continuous bridge integrity monitoring.