A study of the use of artificial neural networks to estimate dynamic displacements due to dynamic loads in bridges

Measurement of dynamic displacement is one of the most essential aspects of a structural behavior because it portrays history of the global behavior of structure. In general, structural engineers are accepted these response as reliable physical quantities to evaluate the conditions of a structure. The reason is that these physical quantities can easily generate strain as well as stress, velocity and acceleration at the measuring points. However, it is difficult to directly measure the displacement of the bridge due to problems such as test conditions and the limitations of equipment. Therefore, in this study, an artificial neural network (ANN) demonstrates how it could overcome such limitations and utilize the random dynamic load to obtain the reliable estimations. Numerical analysis is conducted to obtain learning data about the axial strain as well as vertical displacement with time frame at multi-points and then applied to the ANN. The scenario centered on a variety of dynamic loads from the analysis of an urban bridge that was selected based on its general volume of traffic. The analysis was performed to estimate its displacement, which corresponds to the strain on the bridge caused by arbitrary loads of leaning results from the ANN. Then, it is confirmed that the estimated displacements of ANN show well agreements with that of an independent set of traffic scenario.