Field Monitoring of a Corrugated Steel Culvert Using Multiple Sensing Technologies

Abstract

Quantitative measurements are necessary to support accurate assessments of culverts; however, the choice of which sensor to employ to support these assessments is often not clear. An in-service corrugated steel culvert with a 3.1-m span was tested under static truck loading and monitored with fiber-optic strain sensors, a total station, digital image correlation (DIC), and lidar. Distributions of strains around the circumference were successfully captured by fiber-optic sensors, showing how the position of the peak thrust depended on the truck location, and that the peak flexural stress was double the peak hoop stress (contrary to strength limits considered within North American design codes). The peak thrust and moment occurred when the truck wheel pair was directly over the crown, as inferred in previous studies. The live load was found to be distributed nonuniformly along the longitudinal axis. Both the total station and DIC were feasible options for measuring displacements at the crown, while lidar was highly effective at recording the overall geometry.