Design of the Set-Up for Ambient Vibration and Dynamic forced Tests on a Cable-Stayed Bridge

Abstract

The Adriatico cable-stayed bridge in Bari, a 626-m long cable stayed bridge, was opened for traffic in 2016. It was built due to the necessity to overpass the railway of RFI and Ferrotramviaria s.p.a. The two central cable-stayed bays have a total length of 225 m. They are supported by 30 cables connected to a central upside-down Y-shaped pylon which is rotated of about 30° with respect to the axis of the bridge deck. The bridge was dynamically tested in 2016 before its opening. After almost five years it was required to test again the bridge for maintenance purposes. To this aim tests similar to the previous ones have been performed with the addition of dynamic tests on the pylon to get more information on its behaviour. A total number of 30 piezoelectric accelerometers have been utilized in different positions of the cables-stayed bays and the pylon to record the accelerations produced by environmental forces and by the impact of a loaded truck of about 32 tons passing over bumpers on the deck. The present paper describes the test program and the set-up for both the deck and the pylon, and the instrumentation utilized for the dynamic tests. The first records obtained during the experimental campaign are provided too.