Magnetic flux detection and identification of bridge cable metal area loss damage

In the past few decades, many bridges have been built. How to ensure the safety and durability of these bridges has become an important issue in the field of bridge engineering. Among them, the loss of the cross-sectional area of cables is a common damage and severely area loss-induced damage in bridge cables could break wires to cause bridge failures. The loss of metal area refers to corrosion inside the cable, missing wire or broken wire of the cable within a certain length of the longitudinal direction. These all make detection a very important issue for the health and maintenance of bridge cables. Magnetic flux examination can be used in analyzing the collected signals and solving many problems in the magnetic field. In this study, magnetic flux examination was used to detect the bridge cable defects based on its good performance in detecting wire rope defects. Theoretical derivation for a quantitative identification method has been finished recently. Finite element simulation and laboratory experiments were performed to evaluate the quantitative identification method and identify the uniform corrosion damage of steel wires. The characteristics of the magnetic flux detection signal of the cables in different types of defects and different equipment parameters' influence were investigated. Furthermore, the proposed defect length coefficient was used to correct the magnetic flux signal, and it is proved that the defect length coefficient is effective in improving the accuracy of quantitative identification of short defects in the experiment.

Automated summary

Ensuring the safety and durability of bridges is crucial in bridge engineering, with magnetic flux examination being used to detect defects in bridge cables and a proposed defect length coefficient to improve the accuracy of quantitative identification.