Testing point spectral
analysis based on FFT
Bridge vibration frequency
resolving in the condition
of motivation context
Based on the motivation context, bridge
vibration signal is not all the pure sine
form[5]. According to the Fourier analysis,
vibrating signal could be decomposed
into many harmonic components.
Each harmonic component may be
expressed by its amplitude and phase.

Fig 4 Time series of 4 testing points during same time-interval


Fig 3 GPS device using in testing
form[5]. According to the Fourier analysis,
vibrating signal could be decomposed
into many harmonic components.
Each harmonic component may be
expressed by its amplitude and phase.
Supposed there is a dynamic deformation
observation system, recording deformation
value is x1 at t1 time, and x2 at t2 …,
. xn at the tn time, these observed data
constitute group of discrete time series
which can be writed as {xt} (t=1, 2 …n).If
the frequency fs (s=1, 2 ......k) of every
harmonics in this group of time series
is known, then they can be simulated
with Fourier expansive formula (4):
Actually, based on the time series, the
(a) first step

(b) second step

(c) third step

Fig.5 Power spectral density of bridge
bridge vibrates frequency of fs in various
steps harmonics could be decides by
spectral analysis which are supported by
measured waveform or the data come

Tab.1 Comparison of vibration frequencies between GPS solution and other methods

Fig 6 bridge various vibration types using finite
element method
from discrete processing. Formula (5) is
the discrete form of Fourier transform.

In Eq (5) , x(n) and X(k)
are the series of time order vibration
and frequency response respectively at
the testing point. k=0, 1, 2, …, n-1
In order to guarantee the operation speed,
the fast discrete Fourier transform or
FFT was introduced in computation,
usually FFT algorithm has two method
including the time extraction FFT and
the frequency extraction FFT. The former
makes the time domain signal into
even-odd sequence, the latter makes the
frequency range signal into even-odd sequence. All of them take advantage
of two characteristic of one is the
periodicity or another is symmetry or Where signal * means W is conjugate.
This paper chose the former method.
Because the GPS signal noise source
in testing point is multipath primarily,
and the multipath signal frequency is
lower than the bridge natural frequency.
In order to compare the finite element
modality analysis result, with the
Matlab signal processing toolbox, a 9
steps Butterworth bandpass filter has
been designed. Firstly, the filter for the
structure vibration time interval curve has
been carried out, then with the filtered
signal the spectral analysis has been
carried on by using the fast Fournier
transformation (FFT), thus the structure
frequency would be obtained. The result
of the ANSYS finite element modality
analysis and dynamic demonstration
show that the bridge vibrates under the
calm condition is primarily along the
direction of vertical bridge floor, using
fast Fournier transformation (FFT), the
bridge self-oscillation along the vertical
bridge floor direction has been obtained,
because more number the vibration mode
steps is, more difficult they can occur,
the first three steps have been merely
set in computation. Using Matlab signal
processing, the first three steps power
spectrogram.of the bridge are seen in fig 5
Where cross direction express the
frequency (Hz) vertical direction
express the PSD (dB).
Validity checking of GPS
dynamic surveying technique
Deterministic model method
based on finite element Because the testing bridge has complete
structural design material, in order to
understand the feasibility of using the
GPS dynamic surveying technique
to get the bridge multistage vibration
frequency. A deterministic model has
been established to resolve the bridge
vibration frequency caused by load with
the finite element method. The software
of finite element computation is Ansys.
The first three step vibration mode graph
of Beida bridge using the Ansys finite
element resolving are shown in fig 6.
Accelerometer measurement method
In the same point and same time,
Accelerometer with the type of 891,
which was produced by State Bureau
of Seismology Engineering mechanics
Research institute, had been set to obtain
bridge vibration frequency, and the data
processing software adopted Donghua
data collection and processing system.
Table 1 shows the comparing result of
first three steps frequency in Beida bridge
test among the Ansys finite element
analysis method, the accelerometer method
and GPS-RTK surveying method.
In table 1, the bias ratio refers to the
deviation ratio between the GPS actual
frequency compared to the frequency
obtained from other two methods, and
the computation follow equation (6).

It is shown from table 1 that the vibration
mode deviation of bridge first three
steps in same place is very small when
comparing between the GPS surveying
result and the accelerometer measurement
as well as the result of using the Ansys
finite element resolving. Every step data
matchs well among them except the
second step frequency value acquired
by accelerometer is bigger. It is also
known from the bridge testing that the
accelerometer has been used in structure
vibration test for its advantage of light
weight, small volume and no affecting
to testing system, but this method could
make bigger measuring error than
other’s and the deformation result is not
direct-viewing too, when the structure
oscillation is slow, it could not measure the
structure of whole vibration amplitude.
Conclusion
The vibration mode measured by GPS
sensor receiver and accelerometer coincide
with the result of using the finite element
method, it indicates that the overall
rigidity of the testing bridge structure
conforms to the actual requirement
From the view of testing analysis flow, the
GPS-RTK method has the characteristic of
simple operation, nimble and convenient;
with the GPS receiver, it is easy to monitor
the bridge of three dimensional dynamic
deformation in real-time as well as first
step bridge vibration mode frequency or
higher step one which can provide the
datum data directly for the bridge use,
maintenance and condition evaluation.
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