Deflection Measurement for Bridges Based on Secant Inclination

Deflection is a significant indicator of bridge’s strength and its whole stiffness, so the research on deflection measurement is an important aspect of bridge health monitoring. There have existed many measurement methods of bridge deflection so far, while inclination method is gradually catching more and more attention for its fair obviously comprehensive advantages. However, the inclination method at present focuses on measuring the rotation of bridge’s section at testing point, that is, the tangent angle of deflection curve. With the tangent angle, the deflection curve can be determined by the methods of curve fitting or (and) integration or conjugate beam. The methods mentioned above, are not only complicated in calculation, but also bad in accuracy. The deflection measurement method proposed by this paper is based on measuring the inclination of two points initiatively in horizontal line, that is, the secant angle of the deflection curve, and on the simple triangle function operation. The proposed method is simple in theory, but good in accuracy for either static or dynamic load. The numerical simulation suggests that the error of the proposed method is less than 1%.