. Dynamic identification of high-traffic bridges, Mechanical Engineering Department and Structural Engineering Department - Polytechnic University of Turin

. Assessment of soil drainage capacity, as regards refluent waters from highway containing heavy metals - Department for development of agricultural and forestall resources, University of Turin

. Geographic Information System (GIS) in support of automation of inspection procedures concerning the road structures, Silec S.p.A - Design and Analysis Business Unit

. Continuous Automatic System for mapping of highway characteristics, road geometry surveys trough GPS (General Positioning System) and image digital recordings related to absolute geographic positioning - Silec S.p.A - Design and Analysis Business Unit

. GPS tracking system and data transmission trough the use of LEO: Low Earth Satellite, Silec S.p.A - Design and Analysis Business Unit

DYNAMIC IDENTIFICATION OF HIGH-TRAFFIC BRIDGES

Interest in monitoring large engineering structures has been growing rapidly over the past 10 years, both in Europe and in the rest of the world, especially as regards bridges and dams, with the purpose of detecting potential damages on the structure and its reliability and, where possible, estimate its residual life.
In this sector, Silec S.p.A - Design and Analysis Business Unit provides assistance and collaboration to the Mechanical Engineering and Structural Engineering Departments of Turin in the development of new instruments of analysis that, by measuring the vibrations, allow the assessment of structure anomalies due to the aging process and to the effects of external agents. The methodology in use is based on the techniques of modal analysis, applied in this case to the systems that allow only the measurement of dynamic response, since the measurement of excitation caused by the passage of vehicles or by the blowing of wind does not result possible.
Exactly this aspect makes the adopted methodology particularly advantageous, given that it is not necessary to interrupt the traffic flow on the bridge (as is needed in case of vibrodyne tests or visual tests). The passage of the vehicles alone represents the source of excitement sufficient for provoking dynamic response. The study carried out has contributed to the elaboration of the software BRIVID (Bridge Vibrations Diagnosis).

BriViD (Bridge Vibrations Diagnosis) is a software application developed in MATLAB® environment by the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Structural Engineering of Polytechnic University of Turin, in collaboration with Silec S.p.A - Design and Analysis Business Unit.
BriViD adopts methods of analysis based on the theory of controls, that represent an extension of ARMA models in vectorial form, so called ARMAV (Auto Regressive Moving Average Vectors), and the Ibrahim Time Domain method, applied to the impulse responses synthesized through the Random Decrement Technique: contemporaneous employment of the two approaches allows the comparison of parameters obtained and testing of their statistical reliability.
The software BriViD is an instrument of analysis that, beginning from the instrumentation choice, through the optimization of sensor distribution and of acquisition parameters, allows obtaining all information necessary for identification of dynamic parameters of the structure at issue: the progressive variation of these parameters is a sign of possible anomalies caused by the aging of the structure.
The software application BriViD has been already used with success in dynamic analysis of numerous bridges (on A4 Turin-Milan Motorway, on SS Aurelia national road, the bridge across the Fraser River, close to Vancouver), as well for the dynamic analysis of civil constructions (post seismic analysis of the Foligno Hospital, Heritage Court Tower-Vancouver), of motor vehicles in movement and of machine tools during their work cycle.