Bridge Rapid Assessment Center for Extreme Events

Through the PEER-Bridge Program, Caltrans is contracting with UC Berkeley to develop the Bridge Rapid Assessment Center for Extreme Events (BRACE2), a trial implementation center that will monitor the Hayward 580/238 Separation bridge 24/7.

Under Phase I of the project, communication and processing infrastructure was established that enabled monitoring in real-time. State-of-the-art structural models were developed for the trial pilot Hayward bridge which are being used to develop simpler algorithms that can provide damage estimates in real-time. These estimates are being provided to Caltrans via the https://structures.live web application to support decision-making regarding bridge closure and inspection. This application is built on the open source infrastructure resilience ecosystem, IRiE, and integrates many of the STAIRLab’s open source software libraries.

Structures in the California highway system monitored by the BRACE2 project.

Efficient updating of bridge models using recorded sensor data will also be developed. Another objective of the task is to estimate structural responses and fine tune modeling parameters of 4 other existing bridges using historic sensor data. The goal of the study is to capture various influence parameters critical to bridge responses from recorded data. More information about the project can be found in the following:

Also see a related article on “Smart Bridges, Evolved” that appeared in the July/August 2020 issue of Civil Engineering Magazine.

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