Bridge owners and managers are overwhelmed with increasing maintenance costs and decreasing maintenance
budgets, and efficient allocation of resources is dependent on the ability to perform objective assessments of bridge
health. One method to objectively assess the performance of a structure is the installation of traditional sensors,
which typically need to be in physical contact with the bridge and may require special equipment for access to key
bridge elements as well as wiring for power supply and data acquisition. Visual image correlation (VIC) is a
noncontact, optical measurement technique that can be used as an alternative to traditional bridge response
measurement instruments such as strain gages or linear variable differential transformers, commonly referred to as
LVDTs. VIC was applied to a series of laboratory and field experiments for verification of VIC application for civil
structures in which the VIC system and traditional sensors simultaneously were deployed. The collected
measurements were used for structural model verification, alternative distribution factor calculation and
development of load rating factors for condition assessment. The results from the field deployment at the Powder
Mill Road Bridge in Barre, Massachusetts are presented herein.
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