Optimization of Sensor Placement in a Bridge Structural Health Monitoring System

This paper presents an optimal sensor placement (OSP) technique designed to be implemented on Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems. A steel bridge was modeled in ANSYS environment and four load values were applied at pre-identified locations to generate data. Each experiment yielded an array of data that contains the location, as well as corresponding deformation and safety factors. Measurements were taken at 1,000,000 positions on the bridge and a library of a similar number of failure modes was created for each experiment. Each data library was processed as a multi-dimensional matrix by applying the average filtering algorithm. Local extrema were identified in terms of the corresponding deformation and safety factors by removing repeated values at nearby locations. The results provided a list of 100 locations with maximum deformation or minimum safety factors, containing the optimized positions on the bridge for placement of sensors. The final developed system that includes this placement algorithm capable of simulating multiple load conditions on structures, identifying possible failure points, and detecting and predicting failure scenarios. Both hardware and software implementations of a model of a bridge were performed as a pilot project to validate the proposed system.