Improvement of the Inspection Interval of Highway Bridges through Predictive Models of Deterioration

Abstract

Bridges have substantial significance within the transport system, considering that their functionality is essential for countries’ social and economic development. Accordingly, a superior level of safety and serviceability must be reached to ensure the operating status of the bridge network. On that account, the recent collapses of road bridges have led the technical–scientific community and society to reflect on the effectiveness of their management. Bridges in a network are likely to share coinciding environmental conditions but may be subjected to distinct structural deterioration processes over time depending on their age, location, structural type, and other aspects. This variation is usually not considered in the bridge management predictions. For instance, the Brazilian standards consider a constant inspection periodicity, regardless of the bridges’ singularities. Consequently, it is helpful to pinpoint and split the bridge network into classes sharing equivalent deterioration trends to obtain a more precise prediction and improve the frequency of inspections. This work presents a representative database of the Brazilian bridge network, including the most relevant data obtained from inspections. The database was used to calibrate two independent predictive models (Markov and artificial neural network). The calibrated model was employed to simulate different scenarios, resulting in significant insights to improve the inspection periodicity. As a result, the bridge’s location accounting for the differentiation of exposure was a critical point when analyzing the bridge deterioration process. Finally, the degradation models developed following the proposed procedure deliver a more reliable forecast when compared to a single degradation model without parameter analysis. These more reliable models may assist the decision process of the bridge management system (BMS).

Safety Assessment of Brazilian Concrete Bridges Through Reliability Analysis

“…Therefore, to establish a successful bridge management system (BMS) is essential to assess the safety of existing bridges to ensure they are structurally sound and can continue to provide safe and reliable transportation for people and goods. Furthermore, an adequate quality control plan and a classification of the structural reliability of bridges allow to guarantee a prolonged quality and, consequently, an adequate allocation of resources 1,2 .…”

“…Even allowing this reduction, the standard 12 still maintains the quantification of safety based on partial safety factors. Some authors [15][16][17][18] have been concerned with the partial coefficients defined by the standards since they do not reflect the absolute safety that the bridge presents, which could cause the structural verification to reach conclusions that do not correspond to reality.…”

A new methodology to prioritize non-destructive evaluation based on risk conditions and costs assessment in the context of limited information

“…The latter, in particular, are often considered to preliminary establish inspection priorities within bridge inventories (the higher the risk of an asset, the higher its inspection priority). [9][10][11] NDE inspections are costly operations for bridge management Authorities, both in terms of time and economic resources, because of their periodic frequency and the large number of bridges and viaducts they usually involve. 12 Therefore, in addition to the preliminary results of the risk assessment of the assets to be inspected, the planning of NDE inspections should take into account the costs of their execution.…”

A New Methodology for the Prioritization of Visual Inspections of Bridges and Viaducts

“…In view of this, it seems strategic to consider the operational costs of conducting visual inspection when defining inspection plans, a task that several methodologies reported in the literature perform by considering only the outcomes from preliminary risk assessments (e.g. the higher the risk of an asset, the greater its inspection priority) [11][12][13]. In this regard, it should be also considered that management authorities often face a lack of information to properly conduct preliminary risk assessments, resulting in difficulties and delays in setting priorities for visual inspection activities [14,15].…”