Damaged cable identification in cable-stayed bridge from bridge deck strain measurements using support vector machine

A new two-step approach is developed for damaged cable identification in a cable-stayed bridge from deck bending strain responses using Support Vector Machine. A Damaged Cable Identification Machine (DCIM) based on support vector classification is constructed to determine the damaged cable and a Damage Severity Identification Machine (DSIM) based on support vector regression is built to estimate the damage severity. A field cable-stayed bridge with a long-term monitoring system is used to verify the proposed method. The three-dimensional Finite Element Model (FEM) of the cable-stayed bridge is established using ANSYS, and the model is validated using the field testing results, such as the mode shape, natural frequencies and its bending strain responses of the bridge under a moving vehicle. Then the validated FEM is used to simulate the bending strain responses of the longitude deck near the cable anchors when the vehicle is passing over the bridge. Different damage scenarios are simulated for each cable with various severities. Based on damage indexes vector, the training datasets and testing datasets are acquired, including single damaged cable scenarios and double damaged cable scenarios. Eventually, DCIM is trained using Support Vector Classification Machine and DSIM is trained using Support Vector Regression Machine. The testing datasets are input in DCIM and DSIM to check their accuracy and generalization capability. Different noise levels including 5%, 10%, and 20% are considered to study their anti-noise capability. The results show that DCIM and DSIM both have good generalization capability and anti-noise capability.