Structural health monitoring of existing highway bridges to improve infrastructure sustainability: Experimental testing and numerical simulation

Sustainable development of the transportation infrastructure is one of the most significant worldwide challenges in the future, particularly to ensure the safety and functionality of existing highway bridges as they have been for centuries, as the higher traffic volume continues to combine with environmental changes. Using overpass bridges investigation on Hilla–Kish Expressway, a vital regional highway in Iraq, as a case study, this research investigates the health of such bridges. In this study, it selected a combined field static loading test and structural monitoring analysis numerical simulation method. Field data were gathered wherein the deflections and strains at selected critical locations on the bridge girders were determined under well-controlled loading conditions. Simultaneously, a full-fidelity 3D finite element model was developed in CSIBridge, driven by the same loading to replicate structural response. It shows that the agreement between both the experimental and the numerical results is excellent, which demonstrates the reliability of this FEM model for future forecasting. This study enables the extension of the service life of bridges by reducing the environmental and economic costs associated with the premature replacement of such infrastructure through the accurate determination of the live-load distribution and stiffness of the bridge components, i.e., the superstructure and substructure. These results will feed into the Engineering Research" axis of the conference by showing that accurate structural assessment can serve as a fundamental building block of sustainable, globally distributed infrastructure management and climate-adapted engineering.