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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
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    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Damage Progression of Highway Bridges and Operational Vibration-Waveforms
</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2627353</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The dynamic response of civil structures has long been utilized in damage detection. Techniques such as vibration-based damage identification, usually focused on experimentally determining modal parameters, have shown promising applications in detecting damage on bridges. A major drawback of most current damage-detection techniques, including the current video-based approach using drones, is their inability to explain the cause or the condition under which certain types of damage occur at different locations on the bridge. In this work, a nondestructive vibration-based approach, operational response and waveform analysis (ORWA), will be used to determine a cause and possible prevention solutions to the local damage occurring on bridges. In ORWA, damage on a bridge is correlated to the structural motions that are generated by the operational crossing traffic. By identifying the type and speed of vehicles that can put the bridge in deformation modes that can cause detrimenttal damage when they cross the bridge, new mitigation, maintenance, and (potentially) traffic rules can be developed to reduce these effects. In a previous work supported by the Iowa Department of Transportation, the initial idea of ORWA was presented and tested on a single-span highway bridge. A modified form of ORWA was developed and used finite element analysis to correlate traffic vibration waveforms with the modal response of the bridge. In this work, ORWA will be enhanced to include a camera-based system that would be integrated and synched with the vibration waveform measurements. The newly developed ORWA will be tested and validated on two bridges in Iowa.

]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 19 Nov 2025 14:42:07 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2627353</guid>
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      <title>Comparison of Onboard Condition Monitoring System Mounting Location for Freight 
Railcar Bearing Defect Detection Using Vibration Signatures</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2574768</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Prior research at the University Transportation Center for Railway Safety (UTCRS) has demonstrated that onboard sensor technology can make early and accurate detections of defect initiation in railcar bearings and wheels. Vibration thresholds were developed using the extensive history of acceleration data gathered from an accelerometer mounted at the preferred Smart Adapter (SA) location on the bearing adapter. This location is not available on many adapter types. Data acquired at alternate locations on the adapter indicates that there are systematic differences in recorded vibration waveforms that are significant enough to require compensation in order to find equivalent threshold levels. We propose a study using multiple, simultaneously sampled accelerometers on adapters at several different locations of the adapter surface, to determine the required compensation functions. This large-scale study will be conducted at the UTCRS lab but will be supplemented with field data expected to be gathered at the MxV Rail Fast Loop facility. The test will directly acquire data from (a) the SA location, (b) face-mounted top dead center (TDC) location, (c) and face-mounted at a location 45o off top-dead center (Mote). It will also be compared with statistical data from commercial vibration sensors with alternate mountings. The lab testing will take place concurrently with other previously committed experiments on a combination of healthy bearings and bearings with known early-stage and progressing defects. The outcomes of this project would include quantitative, calibrated comparisons of vibration signatures from the SA location to the alternate as well as potential improvements to existing thresholds and algorithms. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2025 18:51:56 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2574768</guid>
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      <title>VKelly Slipform Paving Vibration Test</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2008552</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The VKelly test was developed to provide agencies and contractors a tool that reports how a slipform paving mixture responds to vibration. It has been noted in the past that the slump test was useful, but did not provide a complete picture of the workability of a mixture.  Increased complexity of mixtures including the use of supplementary cementitious materials and chemical admixtures has reduced the usefulness of the information provided by the slump test. In addition, current construction tools call for more information about all of the rheological properties of a mixture that are not fully described by the slump test.
Initial evaluation by agencies has shown that the VKelly does provide useful, numerical and repeatable data on how a mixture will perform in a paving machine and that it could distinguish between workability of mixtures with similar slumps.  It has also been used by contractors to develop mixture proportions that were reported to be successful in the field.  They were able to reduce the amount of cementitious materials in a mixture while improving workability without compromising engineering properties. A number of rigs were sent to agencies around the country for them to evaluate. Feedback indicated that while seemingly technically sound, the test was challenging to operate.
Objectives: The aim of the work is threefold: Make the test more user friendly and portable; Understand the science behind the method to guide mixture proportioning and field operations based on test results; Broaden the applicability to include structural and pumping mixtures. The long-term vision of this work is to develop an understanding of how mixtures can be proportioned that are relatively insensitive to vibration abuse or are ideal for the vibration system planned for use on a given site. In addition, it is desirable that a real-time test be available on a site so that as a mixture is delivered, it can be tested for workability variances due to batching or transport, thus providing the operator with guidance on how to tune the placing equipment for a truckload for a given workability. Data can also be provided to the batch plant to guide proportions for the next truck to maintain uniformity. At present, the output from the method is a so-called VKelly Index that has been tested in the field to assess upper and lower limits for slipform paving. Initial laboratory test data using a smart vibrator that also reports the voltage required to maintain a constant vibration frequency also indicates the potential to assess a number of other mixture properties. Based on this information there is a need to fully understand the mixture and equipment factors that influence the rate at which the ball sinks under vibration and how it can be used to guide mixture proportioning and construction processes.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Aug 2022 17:02:02 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2008552</guid>
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