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Smart Structures and Systems
  Volume 27, Number 2, February 2021 , pages 241-256
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/sss.2021.27.2.241
 


Bridge weigh-in-motion through bidirectional Recurrent Neural Network with long short-term memory and attention mechanism
Zhichao Wang and Yang Wang

 
Abstract
    In bridge weigh-in-motion (BWIM), dynamic bridge response is measured during traffic and used to identify overloaded vehicles. Most past studies of BWIM use mechanics-based algorithms to estimate axle weights. This research instead investigates deep learning, specifically the recurrent neural network (RNN), toward BWIM. In order to acquire the large data volume to train a RNN network that uses bridge response to estimate axle weights, a finite element bridge model is built through the commercial software package LS-DYNA. To mimic everyday traffic scenarios, tens of thousands of randomized vehicle formations are simulated, with different combinations of vehicle types, spacings, speeds, axle weights, axle distances, etc. Dynamic response from each of the randomized traffic scenarios is recorded for training the RNN. In this paper we propose a 3-stage Bidirectional RNN toward BWIM. Long short-term memory (LSTM) and attention mechanism are embedded in the BRNN to further improve the network performance. Additional test data indicates that the BRNN network achieves high accuracy in estimating axle weights, in comparison with a conventional moving force identification (MFI) method.
 
Key Words
    bridge weigh-in-motion; deep learning; bidirectional recurrent neural network; attention mechanism; long short-term memory
 
Address
(1) Zhichao Wang:
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA;
(2) Yang Wang:
School of Electrical and Computing Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
 

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