๐ Soul of the Bridge Post 4: Real-World Use Cases of the SOB Method
The Soul Of the Bridge (SOB) method isnโt just a fancy way to visualise how a bridge moves โ itโs a glimpse into what structural monitoring could look like in the near future. Itโs a practical vision for real-world decision-making, even if weโre not quite there yet.
Soโฆ what could we do with a mapped soul of a bridge?
๐งฑ 1. Extend the service life with confidence
By keeping an eye on how the soul behaves over time, we can ensure that the bridgeโs response stays within an acceptable range.
If the soul starts shifting in the wrong direction, we can restrict traffic before things get out of hand: a simple measure, huge impact.
โ ๏ธ 2. Beforeโandโafter comparisons after extreme events
If we have a โbaseline soulโ from normal conditions, we can immediately check for changes after floods, earthquakes, landslides, ship impacts, or sabotage/airstrike.
No need to guess โ โif the soul stays the same, the structure probably did too, helping us answer one important question.โ
๐ 3. Real-time traffic control and overload detection
We can set up a simple counter: how many times has a certain abnormal response occurred today?
If too many โheavy hitsโ happen, itโs time to act, long before visible damage.
๐๏ธ 4. Make sure nearby construction doesnโt affect the bridge
Blasting, piling, or excavation nearby can introduce subtle shifts in structural behaviour.
With SOB, we can detect the changes in the response pattern and at least get the first metric right.
๐ง 5. Peace of mind for owners and operators
Operators can say: โWe see the soul of the bridge every day โ and itโs stable.โ
Thatโs powerful. It transforms structural monitoring from a black box into a shared understanding, thereby increasing public trust in the management of critical infrastructures.
๐ธ 6. Confidence in signature structures from Day 1
Itโs not practical to monitor every single bridge, at least not yet. But for signature bridges, the kind of CC3+ structures where we push the boundaries of design, it might be wise to monitor from the very beginning.
If youโre doing something extraordinary, it wouldnโt hurt to know that the behaviour matches what the design promised.
๐ 7. Not just bridgesโฆ
This method works for any structure facing large, repeated loads:
Offshore platforms
Windmills/Tall towers exposed to wind
Crane runways under heavy rolling loads
etc
๐ก๏ธ Disclaimer: The progress is rapid, and we (as a profession) need to proceed with care. However, with the best domain experts (not the data-guys but real-world bridge experts) we will find the best candidates for the metrics to detect the changes, and eventually locate the damages as well. In the end, itโs only a matter of resources: if we put in the effort (with the same rigour as some other AI projects), weโll inevitably get there. All this will probably happen earlier than we think.
