Determination of moving load characteristics by output-only identification over the Pescara beams

The determination of the characteristics of moving loads over bridges and beams is a topic that only recently has gained the interest of the researchers. In real applications, in fact, as for the case of bridges, it is not always possible to know the load and speed of the trains which are travelling over the bridge. Moreover, in real applications the systems analyzed cannot be always considered linear. Because of these difficulties, the present paper proposes firstly a technique for the identification of the nonlinearity, secondly a procedure to subtract its effect on the modal parameters and finally a method based on them to extract the information on the mass and the speed of the moving load crossing a beam. For this study, some reinforced concrete beams have been tested in the framework of a vast project titled "Monitoring and diagnostics of railway bridges by means of the analysis of the dynamics response due to train crossing", financed by Italian Ministry of Research. These beams show a clear softening nonlinear behaviour during the crossing of a moving carriage. The method is able to detect the load characteristics after having eliminated the nonlinear influence.