Measurements of bridges' vibration characteristics using a mobile phone

ABSTRACTThis research presents an alternative way to perform a bridge inspection, which considers the dynamics parameters from the structure. It shows an experimental phase with use of a mobile phone to extract the accelerations answers from two concrete bridges, from those records is feasible to obtain natural frequencies using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).Numerical models with uses finite element model (FEM) allow to determine the natural frequencies from the two concrete bridges and compare with the experimental phase of each one. The final results shows it's possible to use mobiles phones to extract vibration answers from concrete bridges and define the structural behavior of bridges from natural frequencies, this procedure could be used to evaluate bridges with lower costs.