Miranda-Rivera, Javier

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    Application of the precursor transformation method to investigate cable tension influence in La Plata Bridge in Puerto Rico
    (2015) Miranda-Rivera, Javier; Papadopoulos, Christopher M.; College of Engineering; Suárez, Luis E.; López, Ricardo R.; Aponte, Luis D.; Department of Civil Engineering; Carlo Colón, Héctor J.
    Bridge engineers are becoming more interested in structural health monitoring of cable stayed bridges in order to understand and mitigate problems such as from vibrations, fatigue, and corrosion. La Plata Bridge in Naranjito, Puerto Rico suffers from a ‘wavy’ deck profile with visible undulations that significantly differ from the design and which are inappropriate for traffic. Thus, there is an ongoing effort to investigate La Plata Bridge to identify resulting structural problems, to undertake corrective actions, and to plan future monitoring and preventative measures. The objective of this thesis is to test the hypothesis that variations in the cable forces away from their design forces can explain the irregular deck profile. This was accomplished by (i) building a model of the bridge with the computer software SAP2000 consisting principally of cable elements and beam elements, (ii) applying the Precursor Transformation Method (PTM) to determine the sensitivity of vertical deck displacement with respect to perturbations in cable strain (realized by equivalent temperature changes), and (iii) determining the linear combination of these perturbed deck displacements that optimally match experimentally measured displacements of the deck (by optical survey). A set of test cases with known hypothetical cable damage are performed that validate the ability of the SAP2000 model and the application of the PTM to predict these damages. However, when we apply the PTM to the measured survey data, the resulting precursors are not physically reasonable. These results suggest variations in cable tension do not sufficiently explain the irregular deck profile.