Critical bridge components – such as bearings, expansion joints and other movement-facilitating and load-transferring devices – experience severe impacts from traffic, environmental conditions and other sources, making them particularly vulnerable to wear and tear or damage. Like the bridge in its entirety, these components should ideally be permanently monitored, as part of an overall structural health monitoring (SHM) system or by means of a stand-alone component-monitoring system. “Smart” bridge component monitoring systems can be applied as sophisticated, permanent Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, with the bridge components part of a machine-to-machine (M2M) or a machine-to-cloud (M2C) communication model. Such models may be designed with integrated alarm notifications and active control functions, and can offer web-based real-time or historical data visualization and analysis. In some cases, however (e.g. small bridges), permanent monitoring solutions may exceed the user’s resources and technical needs. Yet there is still a need to gain insights about the condition and performance of these critical components, enabling maintenance and replacement to be optimized. For such cases, the use of “smart” components, which have sensors already integrated during fabrication, can provide an attractive solution. Such components can provide data in a simplified way – for example, with ad-hoc readings of specific measurements or with off-line data recording and as-required data retrieval. This paper discusses latest developments in the field of “smart” component technologies, and the benefits they offer in addressing user needs, illustrated by case studies.
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