Survey of the Cannara bridge, monitoring with fiber optic sensors and early signal analysis

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is a helpful tool to check structural conditions and to schedule maintenance operations. Ordinary maintenance with visual inspections alone is not sufficient to avoid closures or collapses of the structures. The aim of the thesis work is to highlight the advantages using fiber optic sensors to monitor civil structures. In particular, bridges have always played a central role in the economic and social growth of a country. After the events of the last few years the control of infrastructures has risen to ensure safety and serviceability. In this thesis is presented the case study of Cannara Bridge. It is an arch bridge built after the Second World War. It is located in Perugia, in a seismic area. After inspections to examine the bridge conditions, it was decided to install different fiber bragg gratings (FBG) sensors. At the beginning geotechnical tests were analyzed and a topographic survey was carried out. Then a FEM model was created to better understand the behavior of the structure. The deployment of the Cannara SHM system and sensors technology are described in detail to give the reader a good understanding of the following data analysis.