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KI Monitoring

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Great Belt east bridge

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The Great Belt, Eastern bridge

Client: Sund & Bælt
KI: Monitoring
Where: The great belt, Denmark
When: 2017-present

The Great Belt,
Eastern bridge

Client: Sund & Bælt
KI: Monitoring
Where: The great belt, Denmark
When: 2017-present

Digitization and updating of the monitoring on the suspension bridge

The Great Belt link connects Zealand and Funen in Denmark. The eastern bridge (suspension bridge) is to date still the longest single-span suspension bridge outside Asia, and the Great Belt Link is the longest link over open water in Europe. In 2017, KI was hired to expand the existing Structural Health Monitoring System to also include the Eastern Bridge of the Great Belt Link. Here, existing displacement sensors and hydraulic buffers at moorings were to be monitored and existing sensor systems included in the Konmos data platform. Konmos was also changed from being a local system to operating in the cloud as part of the Great Belt digitization project.

New data loggers

The existing sensors on bridge bearings and hydraulic buffers were connected to KI data loggers, which send data directly to Konmos in the cloud. The data loggers take analogue milliampere signals from sensors and convert them into digital values that can be visualized and give alarms on the Konmos data platform.

External sensor systems

In order to create a common place where data from the entire Eastern Bridge could be visualized and compared, the existing individual sensor systems were set up on KI's data platform Konmos. Previously, employees at the Great Belt Bridge had to log in to specific physical machines at the bridge to retrieve data, whereas they can now access all data via a browser. The systems included were GPS sensors in pylons and on the deck, TMD (Tuned Mass Dampers) sensors from the bridge deck, accelerometers on the hangers and weather stations.

Strain gauges were used to calculate life expectancy

In 2019, The Great Belt's Structural Health Monitoring System on the eastern bridge was expanded with 32 strain gauges installed by HBM. The installed strain gauges sit in the bridge girders of the eastern bridge to monitor fatigue in steel details. KI was responsible for calculating the remaining lifetimes of steel details from stress measurements in the details. Each detail that had to be monitored was therefore equipped with a strain gauge. The location of the strain gauges was chosen by taking the steel girder with the expected greatest stresses from the road surface, wind and weather.

KI calculates the estimated expected lifetime for each steel detail by the following process:

  1. The steel detail is equipped with an HBM strain gauge
  2. Strain gauges are monitored at a high data collection frequency to ensure that all strains from cars and trucks are included in the collection.
  3. A Rainflow is calculated from the stresses (Rainflow counting tells how many deflections in the steel detail there have been within the measurement period and how big they were).
  4. Using the Palmgren-Minor rule, the damage from each deflection can be calculated and converted into a total damage for the measurement period.
  5. The measured damage can then be used to estimate the damage exerted on the detail since the opening of the bridge.
  6. From there, you can estimate the damage from traffic in the future until the steel detail is fully utilized and potentially fails.

The estimated lifetime can then be used to make maintenance planning and to keep an eye on the the Great Belt Bridge remaining safe for the thousands of motorists who drive over it every day.

Participants

KI Consulting Engineers were hired by Storebælt A/S as consultants. External companies that supply data to Konmos include, among others, GeoTeam.

Our role

KI was responsible for delivering a comprehensive Structural Health Monitoring System for the Eastern Bridge of the Great Belt Link. The system creation included replacing data loggers on the Eastern Bridge, creating the Eastern Bridge in the existing data platform Konmos, and inserting other sensor systems on the Eastern Bridge in Konmos.


hydraulic buffer great belt bridge
Hydraulic buffers (shock absorbers) in the moorings.
  • dataplatform structural health monitoring
Screenshots from the Konmos data platform.
rainflow count monitoring
Rainflow count result.
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KI Consulting Engineers
Hejrevej 37 3. sal
2400 Copenhagen NV
Denmark

+45 32 10 55 32
kontakt@ki.dk
VAT: DK32469353

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KI Rådgivende Ingeniører Aps
Hejrevej 37 3. sal
2400 København NV

32 10 55 32
kontakt@ki.dk
CVR: 32469353

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