Bridge Engineering Center

About the research

The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) Office of Bridges and Structures continues to provide safe travel conditions on bridges in the state while maintaining critical infrastructure assets. Over the last 20 years, the Iowa DOT has funded numerous research projects with the goal of developing and evolving an autonomous structural health monitoring (SHM) system to assess the safety and remaining life of bridge structures. Many of these projects have been completed in cooperation with the Bridge Engineering Center (BEC) at Iowa State University (ISU); in fact, more than 15 bridges in Iowa and other states have been monitored over the last 20 years using various generations of SHM. As a result of these research projects, many objectives regarding the development and implementation of an autonomous SHM system were identified, including the target of a fast and meaningful evaluation of highway bridge structures. Given the maturity and proven effectiveness of the developed SHM system, the timing is favorable for the Iowa DOT to implement a long-term, statewide bridge SHM program.

This project will ultimately identify the key stakeholders and beneficiaries to SHM deployment in the State of Iowa, evaluate the return on investment, develop a SHM deployment guide, and demonstrate the deployment on two bridge projects in Iowa.