Structural health monitoring methods of bridge structures : a review of existing methods with recommendations

Bridges are a crucial part of the transport infrastructure and represent an important asset of a society. One of the crucial parts of that asset goes to monitoring and maintenance since the bridge damage could yield to severe consequences in human lives and material damage. Periodic inspection keeps these structures operational and increases bridge integrity. Different methods have been proposed by different researchers for bridge damage detection based on different theories and methodologies. Various review papers on bridge damage detection are published in the literature in the last few decades. In this paper, a concise review of literature on damage detection in bridge structures based on various methodologies is carried out. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine various methods that have been proposed for bridge damage identification along with some recommendations to improve these methods. The gaps, limitations, and superiority of the existing methods have been identified, and future applications which are important for bridge inspection are covered.