Advances in Bridge Engineering

Call for Papers: Structural Health Monitoring and Performance Evaluation for Bridges
Guest Editors: Limin Sun/ Satish Nagarajaiah/ Tomonori Nagayama/ Elsa Caetano/ Ye Xia 
Deadlines: June 30, 2023

Call for Papers: Smart Bridges: Design, Manufacturing, and Maintenance 
Guest Editors: Steve C.S. Cai/ Ertugrul Taciroglu/ Yail Jimmy Kim/ Wen Xiong
Deadlines: Jun 30, 2023

State-of-the-art review of the seismic performance of precast segmental columns

Prefabricated construction is attracting increasing interest in recent years, since this construction method has various advantages as compared to the cast-in-situ construction method, such as less construction time, higher quality control and reduced environmental impact. As a typical type of prefabricated structures, precast segmental column (PSC) has been used as the substructure to accelerate the construction speed of bridges. This paper reviews the performances of the PSCs under seismic loadings. In particular, the seismic performances of the PSC itself under cyclic loading and real earthquake ground motions, the seismic behaviours of PSC-supported bridge structures, and the responses of precast rocking column (PRC)-supported bridges, are comprehensively reviewed and their pros and cons are discussed. For the completeness of the paper, the performances of the PSCs under multiple dynamic hazards, namely impact and blast loadings here are also briefy summarized at the end of this paper.

Advanced bridge visual inspection using real-time machine learning in edge devices

Conventional methods for bridge inspection are labor intensive and highly subjective. This study introduces an optimized approach using real-time learning-based computer vision algorithms on edge devices to assist inspectors in localizing and quantifying concrete surface defects. To facilitate a better AI-human interaction, localization and quantification are separated in this study. Two separate learning-based computer vision models are selected for this purpose. The models are chosen from several available deep learning models based on their accuracy, inference speed, and memory size. For defect localization, Yolov5s shows the most promising results when compared to several other Convolutional Neural Network architectures, including EfficientDet-d0. For the defect quantification model, 12 different architectures were trained and compared. UNet with EfficientNet-b0 backbone was found to be the best performing model in terms of inference speed and accuracy. The performance of the selected model is tested on multiple edge-computing devices to evaluate its performance in real-time. This showed how different model quantization methods are considered for different edge computing devices. The proposed approach eliminates the subjectivity of human inspection and reduces labor time. It also guarantees human-verified results, generates more annotated data for AI training, and eliminates the need for post-processing. In summary, this paper introduces a novel and efficient visual inspection methodology that uses a learning-based computer vision algorithm optimized for real-time operation in edge devices (i.e., wearable devices, smartphones etc.).

State-of-the-art and annual progress of bridge engineering in 2021

Bridge construction is one of the cores of traffic infrastructure construction. To better develop relevant bridge science, this paper introduces the main research progress in China and abroad in 2021 from 12 aspects. The content consists of four parts in 12 aspects. The first part is about the bridge structure and analysis theories, including concrete bridge and high-performance materials, steel bridges, composite girders and cable-supported bridge analysis theories. The second part is about the bridge disaster prevention and mitigation, including bridge seismic resistance, vibration and noise reduction of rail transit bridges, monitoring and detection of steel bridge, hydrodynamics of coastal bridges, and durability of the concrete bridge under the complex environmental conditions. The last part is concerning the bridge emerging technologies, including bridge assessment and reinforcement, the technology in bridge structure test and intelligent construction and safe operation and maintenance of bridges.

Shunquan Qin serves as Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering for his lifelong contributions to bridge Engineering. He is the chairman of China Railway Major Bridge Reconnaissance & Design Institute Co. Ltd., deputy director of Bridge and Structural Engineering Branch of China Civil Engineering Society. He is also the distinguished professor in Southwest Jiaotong University. He established the theory of unstressed state control method for the bridge construction in stages and applied the method to more than 30 long-span bridges. He promoted the innovation of the industrialized and standardized construction method for the long-span bridges, and the development of integral prefabrication and erection technology for the bridges across the sea or on the railway passenger special lines, such as Dashengguan Yangtze River Bridge, Zhengzhou Yellow River Railway Bridge, Donghai Bridge, Hangzhou Bay Bridge, Macao Xiwan Bridge, Lhasa River Bridge on Qinghai-Tibet Railway, Wuhan 27 Yangtze River Bridge, Bangladesh Paksey Bridge, Huanggang Railway Bridge, Tongling Yangtze River Bridge, Anqing Yangtze River Bridge, Wuhan Parrot Island Yangtze River Bridge and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. He invented 50 Patents, published 3 academic monographs.

Professor Yongle Li, head of the Department of Bridge Engineering in Southwest Jiaotong University. He was selected successively as the winner of the National Outstanding Youth Fund, Cheung Kong scholar, a leader in scientific and technological innovation of the National Ten Thousand Plan. As the head, he organized and leads the "bridge wind resistance and driving safety" innovation team in Sichuan Province. He is the core member of the innovation team of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the main member of the national innovation and intelligent introduction base. He is also the member or director in 8 academic societies or sub committees. For a long time, he conducts the research on dynamic performance and driving safety of long-span bridges. He published more than 200 journal articles, including more than 80 SCI indexed papers and over 100 EI indexed papers.