Wind vibration characteristic of bogazici suspension bridge using structural health monitoring data

The Bogazici Suspension Bridge, also known as the Ataturk Bridge, is one of the two suspension bridges over the Bosporus in Istanbul connecting European and Asian continents. Constructed 1973 and a daily crossings of over 200,000 vehicles, it is one of the most important lifelines in Istanbul. Due to the high seismic risk in Istanbul, and the heavy traffic loads on the bridge, the Turkish Highway Authority in 2011 has installed a dense Structural Health Monitoring network on the bridge, consisting of 168 sensors, collecting 258 channels of real-time data from accelerometers, GPS sensors, tilt meters, strain gauges, force transducers, laser displacement sensors, thermocouples and weather stations. The system gives the Highway Authority an opportunity to monitor and assess the response of the bridge continuously, and alert authorities when a response component exceeds the specified threshold level during an extreme event. This paper presents a brief summary of the structural properties of the bridge, the monitoring system installed, and the data recorded from an extreme wind storm on 18 April 2012, which caused the bridge to be shut down for the first time in its history.