Experimental testing of high-rate GNSS precise point positioning (PPP) method for detecting dynamic vertical displacement response of engineering structures

Abstract

© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The fundamental dynamic property of the structures is the oscillation frequency, which can be derived from the response measurements. The structures with a short/medium/long span (e.g. suspended or cable bridges) vibrate vertically rather than horizontally. The potential of GNSS precise point positioning (PPP) for detecting the dynamic response of vibrating structures has been the focus of recent studies. In this study, the usability of GNSS PPP in detecting the dynamic displacement response of a vertically vibrating structure was experimentally investigated. A number of experiments on cantilever beam structures were conducted and four cases with different vibration frequencies, ranging from 0.94 to 2.90 Hz, were selected to compare the PPP and precise relative methods in the time, position and frequency domain. In addition, the effects of the ultra-rapid and final precise orbit product on the kinematic PPP solution were examined in terms of detecting vertical oscillation. The results clearly show that a high-rate kinematic PPP method can detect the fundamental frequency of vertical vibration to evaluate the dynamic movement of long/medium/short-span suspended bridges and highway viaducts.