Fiber reinforced composite materials have the merits of light weight and durability for bridge deck and are estimated to be superior in economy to conventional deck materials considering the life-cycle cost of bridge. In this study, fatigue tests were conducted for the span lengths of 2.0 m and 2.5 m in order to investigate the change trend of fatigue characteristics of composite material deck according to the change in the span length. The result showed that the fatigue life rapidly reduces to about 25% when the span increases by 25%. However, considering that the fatigue performance safety margin was approximately 1.6 times more than the design axle load of the DB-24 design truck load in Korea, even at the span of 2.5 m, it is judged that the FRP decks being considered can be effectively used at a span length of 2.5 m.

Damage to infrastructure is a real concern at present, caused primarily by worldwide climate anomalies, global warming, and natural disasters. Korea has begun research to develop a high precision patch/implant system using new IT as a basis, as critical element in building/large structure safety management, to adjust to this situation. Technologies which must be developed for this research are those which measure and evaluate the soundness and safety of structures based on the measurements of an attached sensor. During the research period, optical fiber sensor patches and wireless sensor capsule implants along with various sensor technologies, stress sensing and structure condition evaluation technologies, high durability sensors and low-power compact smart structure sensors will be developed effectively for network hardware technologies. Similarly high precision image processing for automatic crack extraction will be developed along with radiation sensor application technologies, combined management/control technologies for development systems, and practical technologies for building/large structure development systems. Through the results, we hope to acquire higher sensor system performance with a measurement scope (for precision, etc.) goal at least 200% better than conventional sensor systems. The goal is to attain safety management planning and commercialization for automatic and high technology buildings/large structures. If such research is successfully developed, groundbreaking developments for maintenance related facilities is expected.