Arsenal Bridge – USA

Multimetric Monitoring of a Historic Swing Bridge

Members of the US Army Corp of Engineers Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) and Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) were selected to receive the 2012 Fiatech Celebration of Engineering and Technology Innovation (CETI) Award for “World’s First Fully Integrated Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) System for Steel Truss Bridges.

The Arsenal Bridge, also known as the Government Bridge, crosses the Mississippi River connecting Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa. The original bridge at the site, finished in 1856, was the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi. The bridge represented a threat to the South, which sought to create a southern rail route to the Pacific, and to Saint Louis, whose steamboats faced competition from Chicago’s railroads. The bridge now has two levels. The top level is a two-lane railway (figure 2) and the lower is a two-lane roadway (figure 3). The total length of the bridge is 1,608 feet long. To accommodate for river traffic it has a pivoting swing section (figure 4). The bridge has been operational since 1896 and is the fourth in succession at this location. The customer, Concurrent Technologies Corporations chose the IntelliOptics™ Integrator for the project and was installed in November 2009.

To monitor the integrity and behavior of the bridge structure, and effects due to high traffic, heavy trucks, freight trains, boats, and barge loads that could cause possible damage & fatigue.

• (1) sm130-500
• (1) sm041-416

• (36) os3100 Strain Sensors
• (21) os4300 Temperature Sensors
• (10) os7100 3D Accelerometers
• (1) FGD Tilt Meters