Abstract
This study proposes an acceleration-based drive-by monitoring framework for extracting bridge operational deflection shape information from vehicle responses alone. A transfer function formulation is developed to reconstruct contact-point bridge accelerations directly from simulated multi-degree-of-freedom vehicle acceleration measurements, followed by band-pass filtering around the first natural frequency and Hilbert transform envelope extraction to obtain spatial amplitude distributions along the bridge span. The framework is evaluated using a coupled vehicle bridge interaction model under both idealised (zero road profile) and realistic (ISO Class A and Class B) conditions, considering healthy and bearing-damaged scenarios across a range of vehicle speeds. The reconstructed responses accurately capture the dominant bridge dynamics and spatial modal behaviour, with the extracted Hilbert transform amplitude envelopes providing smooth operational deflection shape like features that are highly sensitive to reductions in bearing rotational stiffness. Increasing vehicle speed and road roughness reduce damage sensitivity by decreasing spatial resolution and introducing additional variability, yet the damaged bearing condition remains distinguishable across all investigated scenarios. The framework also exhibits good robustness to measurement noise, with extracted spatial features remaining largely unaffected even under low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. Overall, the proposed approach offers a physically consistent and scalable means of indirect bridge monitoring, enabling the extraction of spatially informative structural features from vehicle-only measurements and supporting the development of fleet-based structural health monitoring systems.
Keywords
Drive-by monitoring; operational deflection shape; vehicle bridge interaction; structural health monitoring; bearing damage; Hilbert transform
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