Yavuz Sultan Selim bridge over the Bosphorus l Turkey
Project summary
Images of the project
A third bridge over the Bosphorus
Yavuz Sultan Selim bridge is the 3rd Bosphorus bridge, linking Asia to Europe, 30km north from Istanbul. It relieves the two oldest Bosphorus bridges from a part of the traffic and supports the road infrastructure development around the brand new Istanbul International Airport, built35km west in 2018. The bridge was open to traffic in August 2016.
A stringent environment
The bridge is subject to heavy traffic between the two continents, strong winds from the Black Sea and along the Bosphorus, and significant earthquakes due to the movement of the tectonic plates in the area.
Therefore, in addition to monitoring the normal ageing of such an asset, these environmental risks lead Sixense to supply and install in 2016 a full monitoring system of up to 145 sensors (weather stations, temperature sensor, GPS, accelerometers, displacement, tiltmeters, strain gauges).
Recording both environmental loads and structural responses, the system alerts in real time for any event overpassing the predefined thresholds.
The Eversense SHM software allows ICA, the bridge operator, together with Setec and Sixense specialist teams, the ability to monitor and assess the bridge behaviour thanks to the database of historical data or the ability to compare several parameters together, such as correlation of vibration versus wind.
Long term maintenance
Since the end of the installation, Sixense released periodic reports of the bridge monitoring and also performs annual specialised maintenance of the system on site, ensuring the duration of the system through time in such a stringent environment.
