Received: 16 April 2018 Revised: 14 June 2018 Accepted: 20 July 2018

DOI: 10.1002/stc.2252

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Seismic response of a suspension bridge: Insights from

long‐term full‐scale seismic monitoring system

Dionysius M. Siringoringo | Yozo Fujino

Institute of Advanced Sciences, Yokohama

National University, Yokohama, Japan
Correspondence
Dionysius M. Siringoringo, Institute of
Advanced Sciences, Yokohama National
University, 79‐5 Hodogaya, Yokohama,
Kanagawa, Japan.
Email: dion@ynu.ac.jp
Funding information
Japan Society for the Promotion of Sci-
ence, Grant/Award Number: 15K18104
Summary
This paper describes an assessment of seismic responses of Hakucho
Suspension Bridge based on data obtained from long‐term monitoring system.
The bridge with a total span length of 1,380 m has a permanent monitoring
system consisting of 27 channels of accelerometers, and seismic responses have
been recorded from its opening in 1998. Between 1998 and 2006, the
monitoring system has recorded about 213 earthquakes with various
amplitude, including the major ones such as the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki, the 2004
Kushiro‐Oki, the 2004 Kushiro, and the 2005 Miyagi‐Oki earthquakes. Studies
by multi‐input multi‐ouput time‐domain system identifications, time–
frequency analysis, and inverse analysis were conducted to investigate seismic
response characteristics. From the four largest recorded earthquakes, it was
observed that girder responses are generally dominated by the modes with
frequencies between 0.3 and 0.6 Hz corresponding to the higher order of
vertical bending modes. Significant pylon vibration that corresponds to stand‐
alone pylon lateral frequencies at 0.6 Hz (pylon in phase) and 0.8 Hz (pylon
out of phase) with low damping was also observed. Results of system identifi-
cations from 213 sets of seismic record show dependency of natural frequencies
and damping ratios of girder‐dominant modes on the amplitude of ground
motion. The trends of increase in damping and decrease in natural frequency
as the ground motion amplitude increases were observed. This behavior is
explained by an inverse analysis method using identified modal parameters
at different amplitude of excitation. Furthermore, effect of stiffness and
damping variation caused by the friction force at the bearings was clarified.

KEYWORDS
instrumented bridge, long‐term seismic monitoring, seismic response, structural assessment,
suspension bridge

1 | INTRODUCTION

There are numerous long‐span bridges constructed worldwide in the past decades. These bridges are expensive
investments and have long expected service life, during which they are subjected to environmental long‐term loads
effects such as fatigue, material deterioration, and extreme loading conditions. Although wind‐induced vibration is gen-
erally considered as the most critical among several types of dynamic excitation for long‐span bridges, earthquake is also

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https://doi.org/10.1002/stc.2252
2 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

a key factor in design of long‐span bridges located in seismically active regions such as Japan. Structural nonlinearity,
multisupport excitation, and specially designed aseismic devices are known to significantly influence seismic responses
of the bridge, and knowledge on these aspects are important for improvement of design of long‐span bridges.
Design for earthquake resistant of long‐span bridges involves many assumptions and inherent uncertainties. There-
fore, understanding the real behavior of the bridge under seismic excitations is very important for design verification
and performance evaluation. For this purpose, structural monitoring system through deployment of permanent instru-
mentation plays a vital role. In addition, structural monitoring system is also useful to evaluate severity of loading
effects after the occurrence of extreme events and capturing possible damage to the structure.
Long‐term structural monitoring using permanently installed structural monitoring systems has been implemented
in various long‐span bridges worldwide.1-6 The objectives of structural monitoring of these bridges are various depend-
ing on the specific concerns of the structure, operational condition, and the potential hazard of the bridge location.
Long‐term monitoring data, which typically consist of structural static and dynamic response, temperature, strain,
and wind, have been used extensively and proven useful to evaluate global structural performance7-10 and to evaluate
performance of specific structural components such as suspender of suspension bridge,11 expansion joints,12 fatigue per-
formance of welded structure,13 and temperature effects on structure.14
Although the list is not very exhaustive, several works have focused on structural assessment of long‐span bridges
using seismic records from long‐term monitoring. The following are some relevant works to name a few. Series of stud-
ies were conducted on the Yokohama Bay cable‐stayed bridge using various levels of seismic records.15-18 Analysis for
the Higashi Kobe Bridge is subjected to 1995 Hyogo‐Nambu earthquake by Ganev et al.19 Smyth et al20 and Lus
et al21 performed analysis of seismic records of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, whereas Çelebi conducted seismic response
analysis of the Golden Gate Bridge from low‐amplitude earthquakes data22 and the Cape Girardeau Bridge.23 Focusing
on the local soil effects, Lekidis et al24 conducted analysis on the Evipros Bridge in Greece, whereas Ni et al25 investi-
gated seismic response of side spans and pylon/anchorage basement of long‐span suspension bridge under different type
of earthquakes and spatial variation of ground motions. The abovementioned studies provide valuable insights on seis-
mic behavior of long‐span bridges considering the effects such as nonlinearity, pounding, soil–structure interaction, and
spatial variation of ground motions. However, most of the studies present the analysis from few earthquake events
because opportunity of having data from long‐term seismic monitoring is quite limited.
In this paper, we describe a study on long‐term seismic monitoring of a long‐span suspension bridge
Hakucho Bridge. The dynamic response characteristics of the bridge have been studied using ambient vibration26,27
and strong wind data.28 However, this is the first study on the responses of the bridge that utilizes earthquake excitation
input. Seismic response analysis of Hakucho Suspension Bridge (HSB) from several years of seismic monitoring is pre-
sented. The main objective of the paper is to investigate and provide insights into the response characteristics of
suspension bridge especially the girder and pylon; and compared them with response characteristics observed in the
previous studies. The paper is arranged such that the first part of the paper will discuss the response analysis of the four
largest recorded earthquakes and the second part of the paper will discuss the observation results from long‐term seis-
mic monitoring data.

2 | DESCRIPTION OF HSB AND MONITORING SYSTEM

The object structure is HSB (Figure 1) located in Muroran Gulf, Hokkaido Prefecture. It is the largest suspension bridge
in northeastern Japan. The bridge connects the Muroran Port in the south and the Muroran City in the north. The total
length of the bridge is 1,380 m consisting of 720‐m center span and two symmetric side spans of 330 m. The bridge was
opened to public on June 13, 1998. Bridge pylons are 131 m high and 21 m wide giving the suspension cable a sag ratio
of 1:10. They are made of steel box and connected by welding. The cross‐sectional dimension of pylon leg is 5 m × 3.6 m
at the base and gradually tapered to 3.2 m × 3.6 m at the top. Bridge girder is a streamlined steel box with the width of
23 m and maximum web height of 2.5 m. The three girder spans are discontinuous, connected by bearings and exten-
sion devices, and simply supported at the pylons.
The bridge has permanent seismic monitoring system consisting of 27 channels of vibration sensors placed on 14
locations. They include 22 channels of uniaxial accelerometer, two uniaxial displacement sensors, and a triaxial free‐
field strong‐motion accelerometer (Figure 2). The accelerometers are of servo‐type ASQ‐1CA and manufactured by
Kyowa Electric Co. Most sensors are placed on the south half side of the bridge near the Shukuzu approach. The sensor
network is not as dense as the networks in other long‐span bridges in Japan such as the Yokohama Bay Bridge, but this
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 3 of 25

FIGURE 1 (a) Photo of Hakucho Suspension Bridge. (b) Dimension and layout of the bridge

FIGURE 2 Layout of the Hakucho

Suspension Bridge monitoring system

is a typical arrangement for sensor network on long‐span bridges in Japan. The accelerometers are the servo type with
resolution of 0.01 cm/s2 and measurement range of ±2,000 cm/s2. The sensors are connected through a wired network
system, and the measurement system is time synchronized. The monitoring system recorded bridge accelerations at
1,000‐Hz field sampling frequency and stored the data in a server for further analysis. In the analysis presented here,
however, the records were down sampled to 100 Hz.
Note that the monitoring system in this bridge is rather limited compared with more recent monitoring systems
deployed on long‐span bridges in the world. In addition, the structural monitoring system was intended mainly to mon-
itor structural dynamic responses under strong wind and seismic loading. For these reasons, the focuses of seismic mon-
itoring of this suspension bridge are on the behavior of pylon/pier, girder, and pylon–girder connections because they
are the structural components that mostly affected by seismic loading.
4 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

3 | DESCRIP TI ON OF E AR T H Q UA KE DA T A F R O M L O NG ‐TERM
MONITORING SYSTEM

The monitoring system was deployed in September 1998. Seismic data presented in this paper are a compilation of
8‐year‐long monitoring from September 1998 until February 2006, where as many as 213 earthquakes have been
recorded. Most of the earthquakes are of small amplitude with seismic intensity 3 or less in the Japan Meteorological
Agency scale, which equal to ground motions with peak ground acceleration less than or equivalent to 0.25 m/s2.
Figure 3 illustrates the distribution of the earthquakes per year during the period from September 1998 to February
2006. In year 2000, there were a considerable number of earthquake (50 times), but most of them were of small and
moderate near‐field in‐land earthquakes. There was no earthquake with significant level of excitation recorded during
in this year. In year 2003, there were 55 earthquakes recorded on the bridge site. Most of these earthquakes were the
aftershocks or seismic activities related to the main event 2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake (Mw 8.3) that occurred about
270 km off the east coast of Hokkaido. In 2004 and 2005, a considerable number of earthquakes were recorded, which
were mainly related to seismic activities following the 2004 Kushiro‐Oki earthquake (Mw 7.0) and the 2005 Miyagi‐Oki
earthquake (Mw 7.2), respectively. The 2005 Miyagi‐Oki earthquake was a far‐field earthquake, whose epicenter located
near the subduction zone of pacific plate at the east of Japan sea, about 480 km southeast of the bridge.
The four largest recorded earthquakes in the period between 1998 and 2006 in terms of earthquake intensity are
the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki, which was the largest one in Hokkaido area, the 2004 Kushiro‐Oki, the 2005 Miyagi‐Oki, and
the 2004 Kushiro earthquakes. Details of the four largest recorded earthquakes and the response amplitudes are
listed in Table 1. Locations of the epicenters of the four largest earthquakes and their distances to the bridge are
shown in Figure 4.
Acceleration response spectra of the four earthquakes are plotted in Figure 5 for 5% damping as stipulated in bridge
design specification. The accelerations were ground motions recorded at the bottom of pylon 4P (channel AM1) and
compared with the original design response spectrum.29 Considering that the first 10 natural periods of the Hakucho
Bridge are longer than 1 s, it is evident from the figure that the corresponding spectra amplitudes are smaller than
the design, indicating that ground motions of the four largest earthquakes were not potentially damaging to the bridge.
The figures also reveal that for the four largest earthquakes, dominant spectra accelerations are within the period of
0.5–2 s, which correspond to the frequencies between 0.5 and 2 Hz. Ground motions of the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki earth-
quake particularly have significant frequency components around 1.5–2 s (0.5–0.67 Hz), which will be shown later
related to the first pylon mode.

FIGURE 3 Number of earthquakes

recorded by the Hakucho Suspension
Bridge monitoring system during
monitoring period 1998–2006

TABLE 1 Information of the four earthquakes with the largest responses recorded by bridge monitoring system

Distance from Peak ground

Magnitude/focal epicenter to acceleration channel
Earthquake name (date) depth (Mw/km) Epicenter/azimuth (°) bridge (km) AM1 (cm/s2)

Tokachi‐Oki (26‐9‐2003) 8.3/27 41.781N 144.074E/312.627 269 71.58

Kushiro‐Oki (29‐11‐2004) 7.0/48 42.946N 145.274E/314.5 365 15.60
Kushiro (6‐12‐2004) 6.9/46 42.848N 145.343E/314.5 360 15.37
Miyagi‐Oki (16‐8‐2005) 7.2/39 38.150N 142.278E/308.6 480 7.73
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 5 of 25

FIGURE 4 Locations and distance between the sources of the four largest earthquakes and the Hakucho Bridge

FIGURE 5 Design response spectra and acceleration responses spectra from the four largest earthquakes

4 | SEISMIC RESPONSES ANALYSES OF THE FOUR L ARGEST

EARTHQUAKES

4.1 | Characteristics of recorded girder accelerations

Seismic responses at key locations in longitudinal, transverse, and vertical directions of the bridge girder reveal that the
largest accelerations occur at the center of the main span and generally in vertical direction. This can be confirmed from
accelerations on channel AK1Z shown in Figure 6. In lateral direction, while the peak accelerations generally occur on
the center of the girder (channel AK1Y in Figure 7), significantly large accelerations also occur on the top of the pylon.
Amplitudes of girder accelerations in longitudinal direction are generally smaller compared with that of the transverse
and vertical directions. The largest longitudinal accelerations generally occur in the middle of the side span rather than
on the center span.
6 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

FIGURE 6 Recorded girder vertical and pylon out‐of‐plane accelerations for the four largest earthquakes

FIGURE 7 Recorded girder lateral and pylon in‐plane accelerations for the four largest earthquakes

Comparing the spectra of girder and pylon accelerations with the frequency contents of ground motions (Figure 5),
one can see that the four earthquakes have distinct characteristics with different frequency content of excitation. The
2003 Tokachi‐Oki is a near‐field earthquake with pulse‐like characteristics of excitation. The 2004 Kushiro earthquakes
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 7 of 25

FIGURE 8 Spectra of recorded girder vertical and pylon out‐of‐plane accelerations for the four largest earthquakes

TABLE 2 Bridge responses due to the four largest earthquakes recorded by bridge monitoring system

Girder max Pylon max Girder max Pylon max

Earthquake name (date) acc (cm/s2) acc (cm/s2) disp (cm) disp (cm)

Tokachi‐Oki (26‐9‐2003) 1,001.2 (AK1Z) 323.87 (AM3Y) 13.0 (AK1Y) 58.0 (AM3Y)
27.0 (AK1Z) 15.0 (AM3X)
Kushiro‐Oki (29‐11‐2004) 101.65 (AK1Y) 69.60 (AM3Y) 1.70 (AK1Y) 2.68 (AM3X)
8.10 (AK1Z) 2.30 (AM3Y)
Kushiro (6‐12‐2004) 120.15 (AK1Z) 51.60 (AM3Y) 1.67 (AK1Y) 0.55 (AM3X)
3.2 (AK1Z) 2.13 (AM3Y)
Miyagi‐Oki (16‐8‐2005) 56.25 (AK1Z) 17.69 (AM3Y) 0.55 (AK1Y) 0.45 (AM3X)
1.33 (AK1Z) 0.75 (AM3Y)

are rather distant earthquakes, whereas the Miyagi‐Oki is a far‐field earthquake. From the amplitude spectra of accel-
erations (Figure 8), it is evident that the largest contribution to vertical accelerations is from the girder higher modes
with frequencies between 0.3 and 0.8 Hz, a frequency range that corresponds to the second vertical asymmetrical bend-
ing (0.315 Hz), third vertical symmetrical bending (0.435 Hz), first torsional (0.5 Hz), and third vertical asymmetrical
bending (0.58 Hz; refer to Table 2 for mode description). The first three girder bending modes (i.e., the first and second
vertical symmetric bending and the first asymmetric bending) are not significantly excited during the four earthquakes.
From the spectra, one can observe the dominant global modes excited by the ground motion. The near‐field 2003
Tokachi earthquake with its pulse‐like excitation significantly excited two global modes: the second asymmetrical
(0.315 Hz) and the third vertical symmetrical bending (0.424 Hz). The 2004 Kushiro‐Oki and Kushiro earthquakes
excited more modes, with the first torsion (0.504 Hz) and the second asymmetrical (0.317 Hz) as the predominant
modes. Unlike response to the 2003 Tokachi earthquake, lower modes 0.12 and 0.22 Hz also appear in the accelerations
of the Kushiro earthquakes.
Note that transverse accelerations of the midspan are dominated by peaks at 0.6 and 0.8 Hz that correspond to the
pylon‐dominant vibration. This is shown clearly by the largest frequency peak of accelerations at AK1Y and their sim-
ilarity with the corresponding peaks observed from channel AM3Y (Figure 9).

4.2 | Characteristics of recorded pylon accelerations

It should be mentioned that accelerometers for pylon measurement are located only at pylon 4P on the Shukuzu side of
the bridge. They are placed on the girder level (AM2X and AM2Y) and on the top of the pylon's west (AM4X) and east
leg (AM3X and AM3Y). From responses of selected earthquakes on sensor locations, the following are observed. The
largest pylon accelerations occur on the top of pylon 4P in transverse direction (pylon in‐plane vibration). In the
8 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

FIGURE 9 Comparison of spectra accelerations of recorded girder lateral and pylon in‐plane accelerations for the four largest earthquakes

2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake, for example, the maximum acceleration reached about 324 cm/s2 or amplified about 6
times of the maximum ground acceleration on the footing the pylon (channel AM1Y).
The pylon in‐plane accelerations recorded on the top of pylon 4P reveal low‐frequency characteristics with slowly
decaying response indicating low damping (note the response of channel AM3Y in Figure 7). In contrast, the out‐of‐
plane acceleration responses display a more rapid decay response characterized by high‐frequency components (see
channel AM3X in Figure 6). From the frequency spectra of pylon accelerations, it is evident that seismic responses of
the pylon are more significant than the girder (Figure 9). The sharp peaks in the spectra of lateral accelerations associ-
ated with pylon frequency indicate large acceleration with low damping. The pylon out‐of‐plane vibration generally has
smaller degree of coupling with the girder vertical bending modes. This is revealed by small peaks of the accelerations
recorded by sensor AM3X at frequencies associated with the girder vertical modes (Figure 8). This indicates that the
bridge lower modes are mostly dominated by girder pure vertical vibration and are almost independent from pylon
out‐of‐plane vibration.
The spectra of accelerations also reveal that the largest accelerations of the pylon in the in‐plane direction are dom-
inated by peaks at 0.6 and 0.8 Hz. These peaks are associated with two modes: the pylon‐dominant in‐phase and out‐of‐
phase modes, respectively. The fact that the pylon modes are in phase or out of phase cannot be confirmed directly from
measurement because only pylon 4P is instrumented. However, it can be confirmed from finite element model built
using the design drawing and specification. The previous measurement using wind‐induced responses28 also revealed
two pylon‐dominant in‐phase and out‐of‐phase modes at 0.6 and 0.8 Hz. It is interesting to note that in case of 2003
Tokachi‐Oki earthquake, only the first pylon mode 0.6 Hz dominates the response, whereas in case of Kushiro‐Oki
earthquake, both pylon frequencies (0.6 and 0.8 Hz) dominate the response. This difference is thought to be attributed
to frequency characteristics of the ground motions.

4.3 | Characteristics of recorded responses at the pylon–girder connections

The pylon and girders are connected by three types of bearings. The vertical bearings control vertical movement of
girder along girder direction; wind shoe controls lateral movement of the bearing; and expansions control movement
of expansion joint with rotational movement of girder around the bearing. The bearing characteristics allow longitudi-
nal and rotational movements of girder at the pylon, whereas the gap between wind shoe and lateral stopper as shown
in Figure 10d allows for limited lateral movement of the girder at the pylon‐girder connection.
Characteristics of motion at the pylon‐girder connection can be observed from pylon acceleration at the girder level
recorded by sensor AM2 in longitudinal and transverse directions. One interesting finding observed from the records is
the periodic pulse‐like responses in both in‐plane and out‐of‐plane directions observed during the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki
earthquake. The periodic spiky response resembling impulse is most obvious in in‐plane direction especially during
the largest excitation between 45 and 65 s (Figure 10a). By observing time interval between two successive impulses,
the average time interval between two consecutive impulses is estimated to about 1.6–1.8 s or correspond to frequency
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 9 of 25

FIGURE 10 (a) Close‐up look at the pylon transverse (in‐plane) acceleration at the pylon‐to‐girder connections showing periodic impulse
response. (b) Spectra characteristics of pylon transverse (in‐plane) acceleration. (c) Schematic figure of pylon–girder connection showing the
wind shoes. (d) Photo of pylon–girder connection showing the wind shoes and the gap

0.58–0.62 Hz. This frequency range coincides with the stand‐alone pylon‐dominant in‐phase mode. Indeed, the spectra
of acceleration record in in‐plane direction reveals that the spiky acceleration response was dominated by peak at 0.6 Hz
(Figure 10b). It should be mentioned that the spiky response on acceleration at the pylon was not observed on other
earthquakes that are smaller than the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake.
Periodic impulses could have been caused by transverse pounding between pylon and girder. Note that there is a
wind shoe at the connection between pylon and girder installed on the top of a crossbeam that connects the pylon legs.
The wind shoe and girder are separated by a small (5–10 cm) transverse gap to allow girder to move longitudinally
(Figure 10d). The presence of periodic impulses on acceleration records indicates that wind shoes and girder may have
been collided during the earthquake due to large lateral motion of the girder and pylon. Similar pounding phenomenon
was observed on the Yokohama Bay cable‐stayed bridge during the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake17 and on the
Minato Bridge during the 2004 Kii Peninsula earthquake.30 Transverse pounding between pylon and girder was not
explicitly considered in conventional seismic design. Normally, the wind shoes were designed to resist transverse impact
by allowing certain maximum reserve strength. Further observation is needed to see whether the similar transverse
pounding occurs during larger earthquake, in which case evaluation of the maximum resistant strength of the wind
shoe may be required.

4.4 | Displacements of girder and pylon

Table 2 summarizes the maximum displacements of girder, pylon, and piers. Displacements were computed from accel-
erations by a standard procedure suggested by Boore and Bommer31 as follows. First, the mean from the acceleration
data was removed, the beginning and end of acceleration data were tapered, and acausal Butterworth filter in frequency
domain was applied after identifying low‐cut filter frequencies. Finally, double integrate the filtered acceleration to
obtain displacement. In this case, the low‐cut filter frequency was 0.05 Hz. For the girder, maximum displacements
due to 2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake in the middle of the center span were 13 and 27 cm in transverse and vertical direc-
tions, respectively. The girder vertical displacement was mainly induced by the first symmetrical vertical bending mode
at 0.12 Hz, whereas the transverse displacement was mainly due to the first lateral mode at 0.09 Hz. Girder longitudinal
displacement is a main concern, because an excessive longitudinal displacement could initiate pounding on the adjacent
approach spans and result in damage. The results show, however, that the maximum longitudinal displacement during
the main shock was about 5 cm, which is still far below the allowable limit.
Pylon in‐plane displacement was relatively large during the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki, with the peak displacement of 58 cm
recorded on the top of pylon 4P. This displacement is about 4 times of the peak of out‐of‐plane displacement. The large
pylon transverse displacement was mainly due to the local pylon in‐phase mode at 0.6 Hz as shown in Figure 11b.
Meanwhile, the maximum out‐of‐plane pylon displacement was 15 cm and dominated by girder vertical mode that
10 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

FIGURE 11 Displacements at the top of pylon during the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake: (a) in‐plane direction and (b) the spectra; (c) out‐
of‐plane direction and (d) the spectra

coupled with pylon out‐of‐plane mode such as the girder third vertical symmetrical bending mode at 0.44 Hz and tor-
sional mode at 0.513 Hz.

5 | SY STEM I D EN T I FI CATI ON S U SI NG SE I SM I C RE SP O NSE S

5.1 | System identification methods

With relatively large earthquake database, we can evaluate the behavior of the bridge and observe the trend in modal
parameters with respect to the level of seismic excitation and their long‐term variations. For this purpose, the state‐of‐
the‐art linear multi‐input multioutput time‐invariant system identifications were utilized. The methods are system real-
ization using information matrix (SRIM)32 and multireference natural excitation technique combined with eigensystem
realization algorithm (MNExT‐ERA).33 Both methods are linear time‐domain system identification that utilize input–
output correlation matrix to estimate the coefficients of system state‐space model. The algorithms allow identification
from multiple source of excitation to accommodate the effect of varying ground motions at different supports that char-
acterize seismic response of long‐span bridge.
In both system identifications, modal parameters of the structural system are estimated by solving the eigenvalue
problem of estimated system matrix to obtain the natural frequency (ωi) and modal damping ratio (ζi) and mode shape
matrices. For implementation of SRIM system identifications, the base motion responses from sensor AM1 (X,Y,Z) are
used as inputs, and the structure accelerations from pylon and girders are considered as the output of the system. This
gives the three‐input and 19‐ouput system in the multi‐input multioutput system identification. And for implementation
of MNExT‐ERA, 14 channels of accelerations from pylon and girder are treated as the multireference channels. For both
system identifications, modal parameters are assumed to remain constant during a specific time window where the
dataset is analyzed. However, considering the possible nonlinear responses of the building during large excitation,
the assumption may not be satisfied throughout the whole responses. Therefore, a piecewise linear analysis was
conducted using shorter moving time window (frame), during which the modal parameters were assumed to remain
constant. The total time history responses were divided into several frames consisting of 60 s of input and output data
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 11 of 25

that each generates a set of modal parameters. Application of the method has been demonstrated to identify modal
parameters of long‐span bridges in previous works.15,16

5.2 | Results of system identifications: Characteristics of identified modes from the four
largest earthquakes
The results of identification from the four largest earthquakes are summarized in Tables 3 and 4 for SRIM and MNExT‐
ERA methods, respectively. The tables list natural frequencies and damping ratios of the first 13 modes below 1 Hz. As
shown previously in Figures 8 and 9, these are the modes that significantly excited by the ground motions. Note that the
identification results presented in the tables are generated from different frames. Each of the four earthquakes dataset
was divided into two time windows consisting of 60 s of input and output data within one seismic event. The root‐mean‐
square (rms) of acceleration channel AK1Z is provided for each time window to denote the level of excitation. Compar-
ison with the previous tests on the bridge by ambient vibration and the finite element model is also presented. It is evi-
dent from the tables that the frequencies estimated for the four earthquakes are relatively consistent and within the
same range. The identified damping ratios vary quite a bit from one method to the other for the same earthquake. In
the identification, the identified damping ratio is an equivalent viscous damping since the identification based on linear
assumption. Variation in the damping between the methods can be attributed to the assumption of linearity and the
broadband (white noise) excitation adopted in MNExT‐ERA.
Generally, each time window generates 13 modes between 0.09 and 1 Hz, where the girder modal displacements
dominate the mode shapes. The lowest mode is the lateral or transverse mode identified at 0.09 Hz, followed by vertical
bending modes and torsional modes. In vertical direction, there are seven modes between 0.12 and 0.73 Hz identified as
pure vertical symmetrical or asymmetrical modes with predominant girder modal displacement. Two torsional modes
were identified, namely, the first and second symmetrical torsional modes at 0.50 and at 0.84 Hz. There appears to
be general consistency among the frequencies identified from the ambient vibration26,27 and from recorded earthquake
responses.
Based on similarity in frequencies of acceleration response in three directions, one can infer the interaction between
pylon, cable, and deck during an earthquake. Mode shapes resulted from system identifications confirm that interaction
between girder vertical (z direction) and pylon out‐of‐plane motion (x direction) in the girder bending modes is not very
significant as shown also by the spectra figures (Figure 8). The obvious peaks on the spectra of girder vertical acceler-
ations do not have their corresponding peaks on the spectra of pylon out‐of‐plane acceleration (AM3X). A slightly larger
interaction appears for the torsional modes (first torsion 0.50–0.51 Hz and second torsion 0.84–0.85 Hz). Representative
figures of the fundamental vertical and torsional mode shapes identified from system identification are shown in
Figure 12.
In the four largest earthquakes, the following trends are observed when comparing the identified natural frequencies
and damping ratios for each frame with different amplitude of excitation. In general, both SRIM and MNExT‐ERA pro-
vide quite consistent results of identified frequencies. The identified frequencies do not change significantly during one
earthquake excitation, although there appear to be slight decreases in the frequencies of low‐order modes (the first to
fifth modes) identified at the frames during peak excitations. For example, in the case of the 2003 Tokachi earthquake,
the frequencies of modes identified from Frame 1 that correspond to the peak excitation (t = 1–60 s) are slightly lower
than that of Frame 2 (t = 61–120 s). The similar trends are observed from the other three earthquakes (Tables 3 and 4).
On the other hand, the identified damping ratios of lower modes in both vertical and lateral directions were slightly
larger for frames associated with frames during the peak of excitations than that of frames with lower excitations.
The results seem to indicate dependency of natural frequencies and damping ratios on the level of excitation within
one earthquake. A more detailed discussion on this dependency will be provided from long‐term monitoring data in
the next section.

5.3 | Results of system identifications: Characteristics of identified pylon modes

In the lateral direction, system identification results show that the pylons exhibit their own frequencies as noted by the
different direction of pylon lateral modal displacement shape at 0.592 and 0.795 Hz (Figure 12). The finite element
model also reveals corresponding two local modes near 0.6 and 0.8 Hz (Figure 13). Both modes are the pylon‐dominant
modes or pylon local modes where the pylons have the highest modal mass ratio, indicating the largest modal displace-
ment among other structural components. The finite element analysis gives the first pylon local mode at 0.603 Hz
 12 of 25

TABLE 3 Identified modal parameters from SRIM system identification

2003 Tokachi‐Oki 2004 Kushiro‐Oki 2004 Kushiro 2005 Miyagi‐Oki

Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame 1 Frame 2 Ambient
(71.52)a (46.56) (10.62) (46.56) (10.37) (14.88) (4.60) (10.56) vib26 FEM27
Mode
(SRIM) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ω (Hz)

1LSB 0.092 4.939 0.097 2.069 0.101 1.435 0.091 4.460 0.096 1.706 0.092 4.962 ‐ ‐ 0.102 3.020 0.090 0.090
1VSB 0.125 6.317 0.127 6.176 0.138 1.270 0.124 2.029 0.139 1.223 0.123 1.693 0.129 1.806 0.129 1.806 0.121 0.126
1VAB 0.146 6.462 0.148 3.875 ‐ ‐ 0.149 1.411 0.151 2.540 0.149 5.521 0.144 1.329 0.143 2.923 0.153 0.151
2VSB 0.222 2.872 0.229 1.872 0.230 2.963 0.230 3.650 0.238 3.815 0.232 4.385 0.224 2.278 0.231 4.049 0.220 0.220
2VAB 0.315 4.303 0.323 1.922 ‐ ‐ 0.317 2.236 0.315 2.418 0.308 1.559 0.309 1.270 0.317 2.594 0.319 0.322
3VSB 0.424 3.188 0.432 1.934 0.436 2.671 0.425 2.100 0.432 2.258 0.420 1.063 0.431 3.347 0.432 1.136 0.449 0.439
1TS 0.487 1.671 0.494 1.520 0.503 0.112 0.499 1.075 0.504 1.518 0.503 1.404 0.493 1.280 0.495 3.378 0.504 0.472
3VAB 0.580 2.979 0.592 0.530 0.579 0.820 0.561 1.580 0.578 1.266 0.564 4.855 0.588 0.940 0.572 0.976 0.584 0.570
1TwIP 0.592 1.803 0.593 1.804 0.604 1.609 0.604 0.544 0.600 1.631 0.594 0.362 0.599 1.613 0.599 3.664 0.600 0.601
4VSB 0.737 1.176 0.730 1.568 0.725 2.129 0.724 2.935 0.732 1.248 0.751 1.540 0.750 3.529 0.738 2.624 0.737 0.722
2TwOP 0.792 1.800 0.798 1.565 0.792 0.706 0.800 1.679 0.805 1.857 0.792 1.870 0.802 0.124 0.781 1.268 0.800 0.766
2TA 0.836 2.789 0.843 2.813 0.850 4.370 0.850 3.005 ‐ ‐ 0.857 0.995 0.845 1.021 0.844 2.279 0.813 0.778
4VAB 0.938 3.232 0.932 4.450 0.963 1.176 0.945 2.654 0.945 2.102 0.939 1.223 0.946 1.739 0.935 1.237 0.965 0.900

Note. Frame number corresponds to the first 60 s of time window of responses used in identification (i.e., Frame 1: t = 0–60 s, Frame 2: t = 61–120 s). B: bending; L: lateral; V: vertical; A: asymmetric; S: symmetric;
T: torsional; Tw: pylon; IP: in phase; OP: out of phase; SRIM: system realization using information matrix.
a
The values in brackets denote the root‐mean‐square of acceleration recorded by channel AK1Z.
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO
 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

TABLE 4 Identified modal parameters from MNExT‐ERA system identification

2003 Tokachi‐Oki 2004 Kushiro‐Oki 2004 Kushiro 2005 Miyagi‐Oki

Ambient
Mode
Frame 1 (71.52)a Frame 2 (46.56) Frame 1 (10.62) Frame 2 (46.56) Frame 1 (10.37) Frame 2 (14.88) Frame 1 (4.60) Frame 2 (10.56) vib.26 FEM27
(MNExT‐
ERA) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ζ (%) ω (Hz) ω (Hz)

1LSB 0.108 2.446 0.11 2.469 0.092 1.435 0.086 1.536 0.117 2.307 0.092 4.962 0.092 2.042 0.081 3.677 0.090 0.090
1VSB 0.126 2.225 ‐ ‐ 0.130 1.306 0.128 2.792 ‐ ‐ 0.124 2.191 0.128 3.831 0.128 3.831 0.121 0.126
1VAB 0.142 7.516 0.154 5.037 ‐ ‐ 0.149 1.324 0.148 1.574 0.151 3.130 0.146 2.725 0.144 2.991 0.153 0.151
2VSB 0.217 2.579 0.236 3.441 0.239 3.657 0.229 5.384 0.241 2.426 0.237 2.676 0.281 2.229 0.232 3.504 0.220 0.220
2VAB 0.315 2.414 0.325 2.410 0.332 2.713 0.318 2.627 0.324 3.491 0.324 2.354 0.326 2.436 0.318 2.078 0.319 0.322
3VSB 0.428 1.050 0.435 3.429 0.425 2.671 0.446 2.721 0.467 1.874 0.43 1.971 0.441 1.559 0.434 1.774 0.449 0.439
1TS 0.494 1.075 0.495 1.897 0.506 0.824 0.506 2.329 0.520 2.555 0.503 2.068 0.502 0.698 0.496 1.620 0.504 0.472
3VAB 0.562 2.988 0.544 1.078 ‐ ‐ 0.566 1.385 0.550 2.831 0.566 1.707 0.576 2.205 0.561 1.724 0.584 0.570
1TwIP 0.597 1.529 0.597 1.529 0.601 1.237 0.605 1.630 0.591 0.458 0.594 1.860 0.603 0.975 0.592 0.631 0.600 0.601
4VSB 0.733 2.312 0.758 1.161 0.741 1.668 0.741 1.047 0.769 3.374 0.734 3.584 0.745 1.228 0.728 1.383 0.737 0.722
2TwOP 0.789 0.646 0.804 1.515 0.805 1.115 0.792 1.029 0.810 1.321 0.799 1.791 0.815 0.901 0.781 1.269 0.800 0.766
2TA 0.845 2.913 0.845 2.912 ‐ ‐ 0.830 1.050 0.838 1.715 0.826 1.035 0.828 0.741 0.832 2.820 0.813 0.778
4VAB 0.935 1.942 0.920 1.602 0.960 1.397 0.940 1.577 0.950 1.157 0.945 1.965 0.934 1.000 0.934 1.004 0.965 0.900

Note. Frame number corresponds to the first 60 s of time window of responses used in identification (i.e., Frame 1: t = 0–60 s, Frame 2: t = 61–120 s). B: bending; L: lateral; V: vertical; A: asymmetric; S: symmetric;
T: torsional; Tw: pylon; IP: in phase; OP: out of phase; MNExT‐ERA: multireference natural excitation technique combined with eigensystem realization algorithm.
a
The values in brackets denote the root‐mean‐square of acceleration recorded by channel AK1Z.
13 of 25
14 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

FIGURE 12 Identified mode shapes of Hakucho Bridge from recorded seismic response due to the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake

FIGURE 13 (a) Pylon in‐phase and (b)

out‐of‐phase lateral modes obtained from
finite element analysis

(Figure 13a). The mode is characterized by dominant modal displacement of pylon in lateral direction with small par-
ticipation from other structural components such as girder and cable. In this mode, both north and south pylons move
in phase in lateral (in‐plane) direction. The mode is also characterized by noticeable lateral modal displacement in the
midpoint of the center span. The other pylon‐dominant mode is the 0.775 Hz (Figure 13b). In this mode, the south and
north pylons move in different phase (out‐of‐phase mode) laterally. This mode has a stationary point (i.e., zero lateral
modal displacement) in the middle of the center span.
The results from finite element model and system identification are consistent with the spectra peaks of pylon accel-
erations in lateral direction discussed previously (Figure 9). For the spectra peak around 0.6 Hz of channel AM3Y, there
is a corresponding small peak on the spectra of channel AK1Y located at the midpoint of the center span, whereas for
the spectra peak around 0.8 Hz of channel AM3Y, there is no corresponding peak on the spectra of channel AK1Y. This
is consistent with finite element mode at around 0.8 Hz that has zero lateral modal displacement in the middle of the
center span. Because the differences in apparent frequency peaks in spectra of lateral acceleration between the pylons
and deck are quite large, the pylon seems to be independent from the deck motion in lateral direction. Hence, the term
stand‐alone pylon lateral modes 0.6 Hz (pylon in phase) and 0.8 Hz (pylon out of phase) are used to describe the modes.
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 15 of 25

It should be mentioned that the coupling effects of the in‐phase and out‐of‐phase pylon modes influence the girder
lateral modal displacement at the midpoint of the center span. The girder lateral vibration increases when the pylon
single mode 0.6 Hz is excited as in the case of the 2003 Tokachi earthquake because this mode induces lateral modal
displacement at the midpoint of the center span. On the other hand, when the ground motion excites the 0.8 Hz mode,
there is no significant increase on the girder lateral vibration since this mode has zero modal displacement at the mid-
point of the center span.
Characteristics of pylon in‐plane vibration and the dominating modes are different depending on the ground
motions. Figure 14 shows the time–frequency analysis of pylon in‐plane acceleration (AM3Y) for the four largest earth-
quakes obtained by the Morlet wavelet scalogram. The figures also depict the ridges of wavelet scalogram for a specific
time stamp to illustrate the predominant frequency peak at that instantaneous time. One can observe from the figures
that pylon vibrates in either one or two stand‐alone frequencies depending upon the characteristics of ground motion.
For the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki, pylon stand‐alone mode 0.6 Hz dominates the vibration, whereas for the case of the 2004
Kushiro and 2005 Miyagi‐Oki, the out‐of‐phase 0.8‐Hz mode dominates the responses. It is also interesting to observe
that domination of the two modes can change over the course of one excitation as in the case of the 2004 Kushiro‐
Oki earthquake. Ridge of Morlet wavelet scalogram of pylon in‐plane acceleration shown in Figure 14b shows the
change in dominating natural frequency throughout the 2004 Kushiro‐Oki earthquake, where the dominating peak
appears at around 0.6 Hz at the initial response and shifts to 0.8 Hz during the largest excitation at t = 55–65 s. The
0.8‐Hz peak then decreases, and the 0.6‐Hz peak again dominates until the end of response. The changes in the dom-
inating pylon stand‐alone mode indicate the time‐variant characteristics of the responses, which are thought to be
caused by the conditions of input excitations.
Because the bridge lateral motion is mainly influenced by pylon in‐plane vibration, it is important to evaluate the
damping of the pylon. Damping ratios of the pylon modes are obtained from system identification, and they are gener-
ally small within the range of 0.4–1.8%, depending upon the level of excitation as described in Tables 3 and 4. These
values are generally smaller than the girder‐dominant modes that in average are within 1–6%. It should be mentioned,
however, that although the pylon modes have low damping, the maximum pylon displacement was 23 cm in lateral (in‐
plane) direction. This gives the maximum drift of 0.18%, which is still very insignificant compared with the maximum
allowable drift.
To investigate frequency contents of ground motions and their effect on pylon lateral vibration, time–frequency
analysis of ground motions and variations of vibrational energy throughout the excitation were conducted. Figure 15
shows the time history of the normalized energy obtained from the Morlet wavelet spectra of input acceleration (i.e.,

FIGURE 14 Time histories, time–frequency representation with wavelet scalograms, and ridges of tower lateral accelerations (AM3Y) for
the four largest earthquakes: (a) 2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake, (b) 2004 Kushiro‐Oki earthquake, (c) 2004 Kushiro earthquake, and (d) 2005
Miyagi‐Oki earthquake
16 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

FIGURE 15 Time history of normalized input energy of acceleration AM1Y for two frequency range (0.5–0.7 Hz and 0.7–0.9 Hz) for (a)
2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake, (b) 2004 Kushiro‐Oki earthquake, (c) 2004 Kushiro earthquake, and (d) 2005 Miyagi‐Oki earthquake

channel AM1Y) evaluated for two different frequency ranges: 0.5–0.7 Hz that corresponds to input vibration energy for
pylon in‐phase mode and 0.7–0.9 Hz that corresponds to input vibration energy for pylon out‐of‐phase mode.
The normalized spectra values shown in the figure are obtained by the following procedure. First, an area under the
time–frequency Morlet wavelet spectra curve is computed for a certain range of frequency of interest (i.e., 0.5–0.7 Hz
and 0.7–0.9 Hz) for each time step (t = 1, 2, …, 135 s). The area under the spectra curve characterizes the vibration
energy of ground motion within that specific range of frequency. Afterwards, the spectra energy value is normalized
by dividing it with the total area under all frequency that describes the total vibrational energy of ground motion for
each time step. By normalizing the energy spectra, variation of energy of ground motion with respect to the two‐
frequency range of interest can be evaluated throughout the response.
Two important observations are obtained from Figure 15. First, it can be observed in the four earthquakes that vibra-
tion energy of ground motion for the two ranges of frequency of interest exists as the source of excitation for the pylon.
This suggests that both pylon modes 0.6 and 0.8 Hz could be excited by the ground motions. Second, the figure shows
that time variations of the dominating frequency contents of ground motions have the same pattern as the time–fre-
quency scalogram of acceleration channel AM3Y shown in Figure 14. The figure clearly indicates that for the 2004
Tokachi‐Oki earthquake, the ground motion with frequency content between 0.5 and 0.7 Hz is dominating throughout
the excitation thus causing the resonance with 0.6‐Hz pylon mode. Similarly, for the case of the 2004 Kushiro and 2005
Miyagi‐Oki (Figure 15c,d), vibration energy between 0.7 and 0.9 Hz dominates the ground motions and causes a reso-
nance with 0.8 Hz pylon mode. Also, the change in pattern of dominating pylon modes for the 2004 Kushiro‐Oki
earthquake can be associated with the change in the dominating frequency content of the ground motion as the source
of pylon excitation (Figure 15b). From these results, we can conclude that the occurrence of pylon‐dominating modes is
related to the resonance because the frequency content of ground motion is within the same frequency range with pylon
natural frequencies. The resonance was enhanced by the fact that pylon has low structural damping, and this resulted in
the prolonged responses.

6 | VARIATION OF M ODAL PARAMETERS BASED ON LONG ‐TERM

SEISMIC MONITORING DATA

Since installed in September 1998, about 213 seismic events have been recorded by the monitoring system until
February 2006. Most of the earthquakes were of small and moderate scales (Japan Meteorological Agency seismic inten-
sity of 3 or less), which correspond to ground motions with peak ground acceleration less than or equivalent to 0.25 m/
s2. This relatively large earthquake database provides us opportunity to evaluate the trend in modal parameters with
respect to the level of seismic excitation and their long‐term variations.
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 17 of 25

6.1 | Observed variation of natural frequencies and damping with respect to acceleration
amplitude
To evaluate dynamic characteristics of the bridge with respect to level of earthquake, the total 213 earthquakes were
divided into several groups of data frames containing 1‐min dataset each. For each dataset, both system identifications
SRIM and MNExT‐ERA were performed separately, and the results were evaluated with respect to the rms of vertical accel-
eration amplitude in the middle of the girder (AK1Z). For most of the 213 earthquakes, the girder vertical accelerations rms
varies within 1–16 cm/s2 except for the largest three earthquakes. Distribution of the 1‐min earthquake datasets with
respect to the rms is depicted in Figure 16a. The figure shows that majority of the earthquake datasets are small and mod-
erate with rms of vertical girder acceleration between 3 and 7 cm/s2. Note that the rms of girder acceleration increases pro-
portionally with the increase of ground motion recorded by sensor AM1 on the base of pylon 4P as shown in Figure 16b.
The results of identification reveal some variations of modal parameters with respect to the acceleration amplitude. To
provide a better understanding on the relationship, the results are presented in terms of average of natural frequencies and
damping ratios and their standard deviations within the 1‐cm/s2 interval of rms of vertical acceleration AK1Z. This means
that the average and standard deviations of natural frequencies and damping ratios are evaluated from a certain number of
earthquake dataset corresponding to 1‐cm/s2 interval of rms of vertical acceleration AK1Z shown in Figure 16a.
Figures 17–20 show the variations of natural frequencies and damping ratios with respect to rms of vertical acceler-
ation in the middle of the girder (AK1Z) based on long‐term monitoring data from 213 earthquakes. The following can
be observed from the results of system identifications:

FIGURE 16 (a) Distribution of number of earthquake 1‐min dataset with respect to root‐mean‐square (rms) of vertical acceleration AK1Z.
(b) Relationship between rms of ground acceleration at AM1X and rms of vertical acceleration in the middle of the girder (AK1Z)

FIGURE 17 Variation of natural frequencies identified by system realization using information matrix system identification with respect
to root‐mean‐square (rms) of acceleration of channel AK1Z. Note: B: bending; L: lateral; V: vertical; A: asymmetric; S: symmetric; Tor:
torsional; Tow: pylon; in: in phase; Out: out of phase
18 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

FIGURE 18 Variation of damping ratios identified by system realization using information matrix system identification with respect to
root‐mean‐square (rms) of acceleration of channel AK1Z. Note: B: bending; L: lateral; V: vertical; A: asymmetric; S: symmetric; Tor:
torsional; Tow: pylon; in: in phase; Out: out of phase

FIGURE 19 Variation of natural frequencies identified by multireference natural excitation technique combined with eigensystem
realization algorithm system identification with respect to root‐mean‐square (rms) of acceleration of channel AK1Z. Note: B: bending; L:
lateral; V: vertical; A: asymmetric; S: symmetric; Tor: torsional; Tow: pylon; in: in phase; Out: out of phase

1. In general, both SRIM and MNExT‐ERA provide quite consistent results of frequencies. There are some variations
within the range of 1‐cm/s2 rms of acceleration, but the variation is not very large. For the SRIM results, the max-
imum variation of natural frequencies is the first lateral mode (17.5%). Natural frequencies of other modes vary
within the range of 1.7–5.8% from its mean value. Natural frequencies of the vertical bending modes vary within
3–5%, whereas the frequencies of torsional and pylon modes show smaller variation (1–2%). For the MNExT‐
ERA results, the maximum variation of natural frequencies is also the first lateral mode (14.4%), whereas other
modes vary within the range of 1.5–9.5% from its mean value. Consistent with SRIM results, the smallest variation
of natural frequencies is for the torsional and the pylon modes (1.5–1.8%).
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 19 of 25

FIGURE 20 Variation of damping ratios identified by multireference natural excitation technique combined with eigensystem realization
algorithm system identification with respect to root‐mean‐square (rms) of acceleration of channel AK1Z. Note: B: bending; L: lateral; V:
vertical; A: asymmetric; S: symmetric; Tor: torsional; Tow: pylon; in: in phase; Out: out of phase

2. Despite variations of natural frequencies within a range of 1‐cm/s2 rms of acceleration, there seem to be clear trends
between natural frequencies and acceleration amplitude. Figures 17 and 19 show the effect of rms acceleration or
the ground motion excitation on the natural frequencies of the entire modes under 1 Hz. From these figures, one
can see that natural frequency of each mode depends on rms acceleration, that is, the amplitude of ground motion.
In general, the natural frequency decreases as the rms acceleration increases. The decreasing of natural frequency is
more obvious (larger slope) in the lower mode than in the higher modes. For the torsion modes and the pylon
stand‐alone modes, the natural frequencies are almost constant indicating the insignificant effect of excitation
amplitude on the natural frequencies.
3. Damping ratios of all modes are rather scattered, with larger variations within a range of 1‐cm/s2 rms of accelera-
tion. In general, damping ratios of all modes were identified within 0.5–5.5% and 0.5–7.5% from SRIM and MNExT‐
ERA, respectively. The average of damping ratios identified from both methods is generally comparable, although
the damping estimated by SRIM method is slightly higher than that of MNExT‐ERA. Variations of damping ratio
are understandable considering that measurement was conducted under various excitations. Note that damping
ratios of torsional and pylon modes are generally smaller (average within 1–2%) than that of vertical modes.
4. Figures 18 and 20 reveal the trend of damping ratios with respect to ground motion amplitude. Although damping
values are rather scattered, the overall identified damping ratios show an increasing trend as the rms acceleration,
that is, the amplitude of ground motion increases. Note that in general, the increase of damping ratios is more
apparent in the low‐order vertical and lateral modes as evident by the slopes of the linear trend. Meanwhile, for
the torsional and pylon modes, the increase is not so significant as shown by the smaller slope of trend lines.
Accordingly, for the torsional and pylon modes, not only that the damping ratios are smaller, they are also not sig-
nificantly affected by the increase in acceleration amplitude.

6.2 | Inverse analysis method for additional stiffness and damping identification
Modal parameters of the Hakucho Bridge identified from system identifications depend on the amplitude of excitation
as summarized above. In the previous studies using wind‐induced vibration records,26,27 dependencies of natural fre-
quency and damping ratio on girder accelerations were also observed. It was observed that even though the increase
in girder vertical vibration was shown to be related to wind velocity increase, contribution of aerodynamic force to
the overall changes of stiffness and damping was much smaller than the effect of friction force at the bearing. Therefore,
considering the previous finding, the change in the dynamic parameters with respect to vibration amplitude can be
20 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

FIGURE 21 Modelling of girder and

additional stiffness (δKb) and damping
(δCb) due to bearing conditions

associated with the change in bearing conditions. This effect is described as additional stiffness and damping at the ends
of the girder illustrated in Figure 21.
The values of additional damping and stiffness vary according to the bearing condition during different level of exci-
tation. To determine the values, an inverse analysis is performed based on information from identified modal parame-
ters. The basis for the inverse analysis is explained in the following section.
Consider an eigenvalue problem associated with structural system at an initial state defined as

BΦ0 ¼ −AΦ0 Λ0 ; (1)

where Φ0 and Λ0 are eigenvector and eigenvalue matrix, respectively, and the subscript 0 denotes the initial state of the
system. Matrices A and B are the system matrices given by
   
C M K 0
A¼ ;B ¼ : (2)
M 0 0 −M

This state corresponds to the initial values of additional stiffness and damping matrix associated with bearing con-
dition at a low acceleration level used as a reference.
Following Equation 1, the eigenvalue problem of structural system after the change in stiffness and damping
becomes

ðBþδBÞΦa ¼−ðAþδAÞΦa Λa ; (3)

where Φa and Λa are eigenvector and eigenvalue matrix, respectively. The subscript a denotes state at arbitrary time
after the system changed. The system matrices become A + δA and B + δB, where δA and δB denote the changes of
matrices A and B, respectively. This state describes the structural system where additional stiffness and damping matrix
have changed according to the bearing condition at higher acceleration level.
Considering that only stiffness and damping are affected by the bearing condition, referring to Equation 2, the
changes in system matrices can be defined as
   
δC 0 δK 0
δA¼ and δB¼ : (4)
0 0 0 0

Furthermore, after some mathematical manipulations involving Equations 1 and 3, one can define the eigenvalue
problem at arbitrary condition in the following form:

ΦT0 δAΦa Λa þΦT0 δBΦa ¼Λ0 ΦT0 AΦa −ΦT0 AΦa Λa (5)

The left‐hand side (LHS) of Equation 5 includes unknown terms δA and δB, and Φ0, Φa, and Λa can all be obtained
from the results of system identification. To simplify calculation, the left‐hand side matrices ΦT0 δAΦa Λa and ΦT0 δBΦa
can be rearranged into series of vectors using a procedure described more detailed in Nagayama et al26 and Siringoringo
and Fujino34 such as

ΦT0 δAΦa Λa →Gδa and ΦT0 δBΦa →Hδb; (6)

 T
by forming δa = [δcT 0T]T and δb ¼ 0T δkT in which 0 is a column vector of zeros.
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 21 of 25

One can define the complete LHS of Equation 5 as

Gδa þ Hδb→Zδv; (7)
where
Z ¼ ½g1 ⋯gN j0⋯0 þ ½0⋯0jh1 ⋯hN ; (8)
in which gj and hj are jth column vector of G and H, respectively, and
δv ¼ ½ δc δk T : (9)
Meanwhile, the right‐hand side (RHS) of Equation 5 can also be rewritten as
   
Λ0 ΦT0 AΦa −ΦT0 AΦa Λa ¼ Λ0 ∖ a∖ T− ∖ a∖ TΛa ; (10)
 
where ∖ a∖ ¼ ΦT0 AΦ0 and Φa = Φ0T. Note that Equation 10 includes the known terms Λ0 and Λa that can be obtained
directly from the results of system identification and a transformation matrix T that can be estimated from Φ0 and Φa.
Matrix [\a\] is an unknown matrix that can be estimated by partitioning it into
 
A1 A2 ∖ 
ΦT0 AΦ0 ¼ ¼ a∖ ; (11)
A3 A4

where each submatrix component is defined as

A1 ¼ ΦT0 CΦ0 þ Λ0 ΦT0 MΦ0 þ ΦT0 MΦ0 Λ0 ; (12a)

A2 ¼ ΦT0 CΦ*0 þ Λ0 ΦT0 MΦ*0 þ ΦT0 MΦ*0 Λ*0 ; (12b)

A3 ¼ Φ*T * *T *T
0 CΦ0 þ Λ0 Φ0 MΦ0 þ Φ0 MΦ0 Λ0 ; (12c)

A4 ¼ Φ*T * * *T * *T * *
0 CΦ0 þ Λ0 Φ0 MΦ0 þ Φ0 MΦ0 Λ0 : (12d)

Note that superscript * in Equations 12a–12d is the complex conjugate matrix. From Equations 12a–12d, we understand
that ai are the diagonal components of A1 and A4. Assuming that M is a lumped diagonal mass matrix whose values are
much larger than damping matrix C, one can approximate the values of ai as

ai ≈2mλi ΦT0i Φ0i ; (13)

where m is a proportional mass constant. Furthermore, because Λ0 and Λa are both diagonal matrices, the (i,j)th ele-
ment of the RHS of Equation 5 can be simplified in a form of eigenvalues λ0i and λaj
 
RHSi; j ¼ λ0i −λaj ai; j T: (14)

Finally, one can now rewrite Equation 5 as a linear equation and solve it using the least squares method as follows:
 
δv ¼ pinvðZÞ λ0i −λaj ai; j T; (15)

where pinv denotes the Moore–Penrose pseudoinverse of matrix Z.

6.3 | Results of additional stiffness and damping at bearings

To implement the inverse analysis procedure explained above, the bridge girder is modeled as lumped mass system. The
terms additional stiffness and damping at the girder ends are employed to represent the bearing condition at different
level of accelerations (Figure 21). As noted from the results of system identifications, the changes in natural frequencies
and damping ratios are more significant at the low‐order vertical girder modes. Therefore, only the first five vertical
22 of 25 SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO

girder modes are utilized in the analysis. This includes the first, second, and third symmetrical bending modes and the
first and second asymmetrical modes. As an initial state, modal parameters of the bridge identified when rms acceler-
ation in the middle of the span (AK1Z) equals to 1 cm/s2 were selected. The additional stiffness and damping at the
bearing due to increase of rms acceleration are evaluated relative to the initial condition.
The results of inverse analyses reveal that in general, the identified values of additional stiffness and damping are
quite consistent for both SRIM and MNExT‐ERA. There are some variations of identified values of additional stiffness
and damping within a range of 1‐cm/s2 rms of acceleration, which is caused by the variations of identified natural fre-
quencies and damping ratios from both system identifications. Despite the variations, results of identification show the
same trend of additional stiffness and damping with respect to the rms acceleration for both system identifications.
Figure 22 illustrates the results of additional stiffness at the bearing using modal parameters identified from SRIM
and MNExT‐ERA methods. The figure shows negative additional stiffness indicating reduction in stiffness, and this
reduction increases as the level of acceleration increases. Identified additional damping at the bearing is shown in
Figure 23 for both SRIM and MNExT‐ERA methods. The results show positive damping values suggesting the increase
of damping with respect to the initial condition at rms acceleration 1 cm/s2. The results clearly show that additional
damping increases as the rms acceleration increases. It should be noted that the additional stiffness and damping values
shown in the figures are normalized with mass constant m as described in Equation 13.
An interesting observation from the figures is that the slopes indicating the rate of increase or decrease of both addi-
tional stiffness and damping values are larger at rms acceleration between 2 and 6 cm/s2. The slopes gradually become
smaller at higher acceleration indicating the steadier values of additional stiffness and damping. The results suggest a
stick–slip behavior at the bearing that is typical of Coulomb friction. In smaller excitation, bearings remain stuck thus
causing higher stiffness, whereas during larger excitation, the bearings slip and result in lower stiffness. The sliding of
bearing during larger excitation induces friction between contacting surfaces; and damping increases as the friction
developed in the bearings. However, the damping increase does not continue but becomes steady at the higher
acceleration.

FIGURE 22 Identified additional

stiffness at the bearing with respect to
root‐mean‐square (rms) of acceleration of
channel AK1Z. The results were obtained
by inverse analysis of the first five vertical
modes. (Note: Vertical dotted lines denote
the variations). SRIM: system realization
using information matrix; MNExT‐ERA:
multireference natural excitation
technique combined with eigensystem
realization algorithm

FIGURE 23 Identified additional

damping caused by friction at the bearing
with respect to root‐mean‐square (rms) of
acceleration of channel AK1Z. The results
were obtained by inverse analysis of the
first five vertical modes. (Note: Vertical
dotted lines denote the variations). SRIM:
system realization using information
matrix; MNExT‐ERA: multireference
natural excitation technique combined
with eigensystem realization algorithm
SIRINGORINGO AND FUJINO 23 of 25

7 | CONCLUSIONS

This paper describes a case study of long‐term structural monitoring system using seismic responses of suspension
bridge. Monitoring system on the bridge has recorded 213 earthquakes between 1998 and 2006 including intense shak-
ing during the 2003 Tokachi‐Oki, the 2004 Kushiro‐Oki, the 2005 Miyagi‐Oki, and the 2004 Kushiro earthquakes. Based
on responses analysis and system identification, the following conclusions and insights can be drawn:

1. The global seismic response of the bridge is generally governed by vertical girder‐dominant modes, with frequency
range between 0.3 and 0.8 Hz. The maximum acceleration mostly recorded in the middle of the girder in vertical
direction and on the top of the pylon in lateral (in‐plane direction).
2. Seismic response of the pylon is dominated by two modes, the stand‐alone pylon‐dominant in‐phase and out‐of‐phase
modes at 0.6 and 0.8 Hz, respectively. The stand‐alone pylon modes appear either simultaneously or separately within
one earthquake depending on the characteristics of ground motion. Both modes have quite low damping ratio
between 1% and 2% that sustain pylon vibration for quite long time. Because of the mode shapes coupling between
pylon and girder, the two pylon modes also influence transverse accelerations of the girder in the main and side spans.
3. During the largest 2003 Tokachi‐Oki earthquake, occurrence of lateral pounding between pylon and girder was
observed as indicated by distinct periodic impulse on the acceleration. The transverse pounding between pylon
and girder was not explicitly considered in conventional seismic design; thus, further observation may be required
to evaluate the pounding effect at larger seismic excitation.
4. Using two system identifications, modal parameters of the bridge were identified from 213 sets of seismic record
with various levels of excitation. The results show dependency of natural frequencies and damping ratios of the
girder‐dominant modes on the amplitude of ground motion. The trends of increase in damping and decrease in nat-
ural frequency as the ground motion amplitude increases were observed.
5. The increase in damping and decrease in natural frequency as the ground motion amplitude increases are explained
using an inverse analysis method. Influence of additional stiffness and damping due to the friction force at the bear-
ings to this effect was quantified and clarified. The results suggest a stick–slip behavior at the bearing that is typical
of Coulomb friction such that at smaller excitation, bearings remain stuck thus causing higher stiffness, whereas
during larger excitation, the bearings slip and result in lower stiffness and the friction between contacting surfaces
increases the damping.

A C K N O WL E D G M E N T S
The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Hokkaido Regional Development Bureau, Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport, Government of Japan, for providing the seismic records and construction drawings of
the bridge. This research is funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through the Grant‐in‐Aid
for Encouragement of Young Scientists (B) No. 15K18104 to the first author. Opinions, findings, and conclusions stated
on this paper are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of other institution.

ORCID
Dionysius M. Siringoringo http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2267-0673
Yozo Fujino http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8993-3779

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How to cite this article: Siringoringo DM, Fujino Y. Seismic response of a suspension bridge: Insights from
long‐term full‐scale seismic monitoring system. Struct Control Health Monit. 2018;e2252. https://doi.org/10.1002/
stc.2252