Bridges

The needs for structural health monitoring in Japan originally come from its geographical conditions such as severe environment for deterioration and frequent natural disasters. Monitoring of the environment and loading conditions with respect to natural hazards and severe environmental conditions have been conducted for several decades.

In the last decade, bridge monitoring has extended its function as an instrument for efficient stock management. Accumulation of bridge stock built within the same period around three to four decades ago means that many bridges in Japan are expected to have serious deterioration problems in the next few decades.

In this paper, we describe the needs for bridge structural health monitoring in Japan and the concept of monitoring as an essential part of risk reduction. The paper outlines strategies implemented for bridge monitoring in Japan, which categorized into three main groups according to the purpose of monitoring: natural hazard and environment condition, effective stock management, and failure prevention. In the end, the paper describes examples of implementation of the strategies and the lessons learned past from monitoring experiences.