A New Drive-by Method for Bridge Damage Inspection Based on Characteristic Wavelet Coefficient

The drive-by method has become a popular indirect approach for bridge damage inspection (BDI) because of its simplicity in deployment by evaluating the health status solely via vehicle dynamic response. Derived from response, recent proposed contact-point response involves no vibration signal with frequency, bearing great potential BDI. However, an appropriate methodology application BDI remains lacking. present study proposes novel method, which new factor index, i.e., characteristic wavelet coefficient (CWC), is established identification efficient and accurate manner. CWC obtained analyzing continuous transform (CWT) complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) techniques. CEEMDAN introduced to overcome issue modal aliasing pseudo-frequency. First, general framework introduced. Then, demonstration case carried out examine effectiveness method. Subsequently, parametric explore effects several parameters on performance including scale factor, speed, environmental noise, boundary effect. results indicate that can better eliminate mixing pseudo-frequency problems during extraction CWC, compared traditional extracted curve smooth, convenient inspection, strong anti-noise performance. After adding white signal-to-noise ratio 20, girder severity 20% be identified successfully. In addition, selection critical based CWC. effective using wide range, improves efficiency. Finally, low speed beneficial alleviate adverse effect ends.