Last month, the Building Resilient and CalSens team carried out the first experimental campaign of the SENSAT project at the ICITECH laboratories of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). The SENSAT project is led by CalSens and COTAACOTA, and funded by the Agència Valenciana de la Innovació (AVI).

First, a scaled specimen of a box-girder reinforced concrete prestressed bridge span was positioned in the testing area at the ICITECH laboratories.

We then performed several tests and acquisitions with a novel shape sensing system and other more traditional sensors and accelerometers to obtain the bridge span deformation and validate the shape sensing system. We also induced several local failures in the bridge span, such as the collapse of a support and the loss of tension in the post-tensioned tendons. This allowed us to analyse the response of the structure in these different scenarios and evaluate the effectiveness of the shape sensing system for structural health monitoring.

Finally, the bridge span was loaded until failure.