Transforming Infrastructure Management in a Networked World: OMA Strategies Empowering SHM Diagnostics

Operational Modal Analysis (OMA) techniques are nowadays well-established methods to support the Structural Health Monitoring field in Civil Engineering. However, what would be the best procedure to optimize the analysis process on a network of hundreds of infrastructures undergoing continuous monitoring and diagnostics control? Innovative data-processing approaches encompass the definition of strategies of cross-controls and combinations of algorithms that allow to respond to the need for both a prompt anomaly or damage identification and a more refined analysis. In this paper attention is focused to a network of more than 150 monitored infrastructures, detailing how the diagnostics process combines the fusion of simple vibrational control algorithms and frequency peak-picking routines for semi-real time alerting with more complex OMA techniques for the initial system identification during the finite element (FE) model updating and for periodic controls of modal shape variations over time. A representative case study of a selected bridge under continuous monitoring will be presented, showing how the OMA techniques are playing a key role in detecting structural behavior variations up to the identification of damage progression to foster proactive maintenance interventions.