The most expensive and critical links in our transportation network are its bridges. Historical and contemporary bridge failures have highlighted our reliance on these structures. While the nation’s bridge management system is robust and well administered, the tools needed to evaluate individual bridges to determine their condition—whether for asset management or in response to a significant loading event such as the imminent Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake in the Pacific Northwest— are currently highly specialized.
NITC researcher C.J. Riley, a civil engineering professor at the Oregon Institute of Technology, has developed a cost-effective, accurate, and easily deployed evaluation tool using widely available mobile technology (specifically iPods) to measure the dynamic structural response of a bridge subjected to harmonic forcing.
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