B-WIM systems application on reinforced concrete bridge structural assessment and highway traffic characterization

Abstract

The vehicles that travel on Brazilian highways have changed a lot in the last decades, with an increase in the traffic load and in the amount of trucks. This fact is not exclusive to our country, so much that in order to assess the structural safety of bridges, there was a great development in bridge weigh-in-motion systems (B-WIM) the last decade, especially in developed countries. Moses, in 1979, was the first one to introduce the B-WIM concept. This work presents the results of a B-WIM system applied on a bridge over the Lambari river, located at BR 153 in Uruaçu (Goiás). The weigh-in-motion technique used is based on Moses' Algorithm, which obtains influence lines directly from traffic loads. Traffic characterization of that particular highway, as well as the effects introduced in the bridge structure and the experimental dynamic amplification factor are also discussed. At the end, it is concluded that the system used is capable of determining, with good precision, the axle spacing and the gross vehicle weight. Errors smaller than 3% were obtained when the acquired gross vehicle weight was compared to the one from static scale.