Waddington Describes Benefits of High-Res Surveys for Bridge Assessment at US Hydro
Substructure Chief Hydrographer Tom Waddington presented the paper “High-Resolution Multibeam Surveys for Bridge Assessment” at the US Hydro 2011 Conference, held in Tampa, Florida, April 25-28. Multibeam surveying is being used as an assessment tool for periodic underwater bridge inspections as well as to meet pre‐ and post‐construction design and planning requirements for new bridge construction.
“Multibeam surveying allows safe and efficient acquisition of high‐resolution data under a wide range of environmental conditions,” Waddington commented. “Although not yet widely used within the bridge engineering community, multibeam surveying has begun to find a role in specific applications.”
In areas with certain environmental characteristics, such as deep water, complex bottom topography, limited visibility, and strong currents – where diver inspection can be difficult and even dangerous — multibeam surveying offers unique benefits, including:
• Efficient and accurate assessment of bridge structures and the entire area encompassing the “bridge system”
• Rich and robust datasets for quantitative and qualitative data analysis, visualization, and image creation
• Highly accurate repeatability for quantitative assessment of scour and material movement over time
• Identification of areas of structural concern that might warrant follow‐up diver investigation
Waddington’s paper provided an overview of multibeam surveying, as well as other acoustic bridge monitoring techniques, and reviewed specific bridge‐related multibeam assessment.
Hydro_2011_bridge_assessment_trw pdf document
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