Feasibility investigations for vibration-based remote scour monitoring of railway bridges

This study investigates feasibility of vibration-based scour monitoring as an alternative method for the impact test. A wireless sensing device was adopted for the long-term monitoring which can be remotely controlled. The target bridge was reinforced against scouring after the long-term scour monitoring. This study examines the feasibility of scour detection by comparing the vibration characteristics of the piers before and after the reinforcement. Observations for the bridge pier before reinforcement demonstrated that the probability distribution of dominant frequencies under higher water level during flood of the pier showed clearly different pattern to those under lower water level. On the other hand, those probability distributions of dominant frequencies of the reinforced pier showed constant pattern despite of the water level.