<p>In this study, an attempt is made to propose a method for flexible bridge maintenance plans against the modification of deterioration curve by using the multi-stage optimization. Both the minimization of cost and the maximization of structural soundness are important for the maintenance planning. Numerical experiments with 10 bridges were presented to demonstrate that solutions obtained by the proposed method were effective against the uncertainties involved in the financial circumstances and the deterioration prediction.</p>

<p>The purpose of this study is to minimize life cycle cost (LCC) for bridge asset management. This study attempts to develop an optimization method for bridge maintenance planning. It is realistically difficult to keep the safety level of all bridges within a limited budget. Furthermore, a local government needs to manage a large number of bridges. These cause the difficulty of optimization such as the increase of the number of bridges and strict constraint conditions. However, an optimization of maintenance plan for multiple bridges is significant to decrease an annual total cost. Hence, this paper proposes a new method to formulate a maintenance plan, which has the flexibility against uncertainties that involve the change of schedule, by multi-stage optimization that consider an appropriate budget allocation based on each bridge’s importance. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness for the planning of LCC minimized maintenance.</p>

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