Probabilistic Approach to Assessing Scoured Bridge Performance and Associated Uncertainties Based on Vibration Measurements

Abstract

Whereas application of sensors that directly detect bridge scour at the foundation may be hindered because of their installation difficulty and vulnerability to floods, the identified scour rarely has been used to assess the bridge performance. This paper presents a new probabilistic approach to assessing the structural integrity of scoured bridges through Bayesian inference based on vibration measurements. The contributions of this paper include (1) introducing a novel application of Bayesian inference for assessing the structural integrity of scoured bridges; (2) parameterizing bridge scour, environmental variation impacts, and their associated uncertainties; (3) integrating the bridge model with the effective sampling algorithm to derive probability distributions of uncertain scour damage and other system properties; and (4) unifying uncertainties of identified scour and the probability of failure of scoured bridges. The proposed approach is illustrated and examined through a numerical study, and its potential for identifying bridge scour and assessing the scoured bridge’s performance reliability is demonstrated based on vibration measurements with environmental variations. The limitation of the presented study and future research directions are also discussed.