The three-dimensional flow of force in a damaged, skewed masonry arch railway bridge – Insights from fibre Bragg rosettes, videogrammetry, and modelling

Sam Cocking; Haris Alexakis; Matthew DeJong

doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2025.120298

The three-dimensional flow of force in a damaged, skewed masonry arch railway bridge – Insights from fibre Bragg rosettes, videogrammetry, and modelling

Sam Cocking
, Haris Alexakis
, Matthew DeJong

University of Cambridge
Cambridge University Engineering Department
University of California Berkeley
UCB

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (SciVal)

21 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Masonry arch bridges are common, especially in the UK and Europe, but interpretation of their structural behaviour can be challenging and is often complicated by histories of damage over their long working lives. Assessing the performance of repair works at these bridges is vital, to provide confidence in their continued use. This paper presents novel applications of fibre-optic sensing and videogrammetry to measure and visualise the three-dimensional, dynamic structural response of a skewed masonry arch railway bridge in unprecedented detail. In particular, fibre-optic strain rosettes are used to map the distributions of principal strains, and hence force flow, throughout the arch, while videogrammetry reveals a secondary load path in the form of transverse arch bending. Monitoring results are then combined with simplified analytical models of this transverse bending, to study the effectiveness of intervention works aimed at restoring structural connectivity between the arch and its spandrel walls.

Original language	English
Article number	120298
Number of pages	21
Journal	Engineering Structures
Volume	335
Early online date	18 Apr 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2025.120298
Publication status	Published - 15 Jul 2025

Bibliographical note

Funding

The monitoring project described in this paper was funded by Network Rail. This research formed part of a PhD, funded by an EPSRC Doctoral Training Partnership (Grant Number EP/M506485/1). The monitoring installation was performed with assistance from CSIC, sup ported by EPSRC, Innovate UK, and industry funding (including Grant Numbers EP/I019308/1, EP/K000314/1, EP/L010917/1, and EP/ N021614/1). Recent modelling work has been supported by the UK Research Hub for Decarbonised Adaptable and Resilient Transport frastructures (DARe), which is funded by EPSRC and UK Department for Transport (including Grant Number EP/Y024257/1).

Keywords

Masonry arch bridge
Skewed arch
Structural Health Monitoring
Fibre Bragg gratings
Fibre-Optic Sensing
Videogrammetry

Access to Document

10.1016/j.engstruct.2025.120298Licence: CC BY 4.0

The three-dimensional flow of force in a damaged, skewed masonry arch railway bridge – Insights from fibre Bragg rosettes, videogrammetry, and modelling
Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).
Final published version, 13.9 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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title = "The three-dimensional flow of force in a damaged, skewed masonry arch railway bridge – Insights from fibre Bragg rosettes, videogrammetry, and modelling",

abstract = "Masonry arch bridges are common, especially in the UK and Europe, but interpretation of their structural behaviour can be challenging and is often complicated by histories of damage over their long working lives. Assessing the performance of repair works at these bridges is vital, to provide confidence in their continued use. This paper presents novel applications of fibre-optic sensing and videogrammetry to measure and visualise the three-dimensional, dynamic structural response of a skewed masonry arch railway bridge in unprecedented detail. In particular, fibre-optic strain rosettes are used to map the distributions of principal strains, and hence force flow, throughout the arch, while videogrammetry reveals a secondary load path in the form of transverse arch bending. Monitoring results are then combined with simplified analytical models of this transverse bending, to study the effectiveness of intervention works aimed at restoring structural connectivity between the arch and its spandrel walls.",

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The three-dimensional flow of force in a damaged, skewed masonry arch railway bridge – Insights from fibre Bragg rosettes, videogrammetry, and modelling

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

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