The Economic Impact of Implementing Nondestructive Testing of Reinforced Concrete Bridge Decks in Indiana

Abstract

Partridge. We also thank Mr. Jeremy Hunter, who provided information about INDOT's bridge maintenance program and shared his vision for INDOT's NDT program. Finally, we sincerely appreciate the valuable contributions of the consultants, manufacturers, and vendors who shared their vast knowledge and experience in NDT testing. JOINT TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH PROGRAMThe Joint Transportation Research Program serves as a vehicle for INDOT collaboration with higher education institutions and industry in Indiana to facilitate innovation that results in continuous improvement in the planning, design, construction, operation, management and economic efficiency of the Indiana transportation infrastructure. Type of Report and Period CoveredFinal Report Sponsoring Agency Code Supplementary NotesPrepared in cooperation with the Indiana Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration. AbstractThe deck is among the most expensive components of a bridge over its lifetime because of the frequent and costly maintenance and rehabilitation required. Currently, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) performs visual inspections of a bridge deck as the principal means of determining its condition, which enables the inspector to definitively document the surface condition while the unseen condition below the deck surface is left to the inspector's expert judgement. To compensate for this lack of data, INDOT supplements visual inspections with programmatic scheduling for major work actions, which is very effective for INDOT but costly. In this continuing era of funding shortfalls, INDOT commissioned this study to investigate nondestructive testing (NDT) methods to fill their data gap to inform its work action decision. The NDT methods have been shown to accurately locate corrosion and delamination and are a cost-effective alternative. A project level comparison between the NDT methods was performed to show which method, as well as which combination of methods, were the best choices from a cost perspective. A project level analysis of 30 bridge decks was performed, and those costs were compared to the costs of the current INDOT programmatic schedules. Finally, the analysis was expanded to the network level, which included the entire bridge inventory in Indiana. The results of this study indicate that implementing the NDT methods is cost-effective for INDOT at both the project and network levels.

Predicting the Corrosion Initiation Time in Reinforced Concrete Bridges Using Stochastic Simulation Methods

“…The cover meter is used to measure the depth of the concrete cover. The chloride ion penetration method measures the chloride content in the concrete which is the same measurement equation ( 1) predicts [13,14].…”

“…can be evaluated using the following equation(13):Where β is the reliability index. Finally the failure probability is cal-culated by subsisting F with F1 in the following integralBayesian Updating for Model ParametersBayesian updating in this research was used to update the model parameters.…”

A Comprehensive Uncertainty-Based Framework for Inspection Planning of Highway Bridges

“…This inspection cost includes the cost of personnel, the maintenance of traffic, the snooper, laboratory analysis, and the CIP test. Hence, adding a cover meter (i.e., difference between consultant 1 and 5) to the inspection process can increase the cost of the inspection by a range of USD 500-USD 1500 [48,56]. In practice, a bridge inspection planner should consider both the reduction in uncertainty and the cost of inspection when choosing the inspection method, and this reduction in uncertainty regarding the TTT will either help in improving the maintenance decision process or it will not.…”

An Integrated Uncertainty-Based Bridge Inspection Decision Framework with Application to Concrete Bridge Decks

“…The first prediction at t = 2years predicted that the mean value for the durations of Stage 1 and Stage 2 from t 0 are 27 and 7 years, respectively. A concrete bridge deck is estimated to have a life span ranging from 40 to 60 years [57,58]. In this example, the life span of the concrete bridge deck was initially assumed to be 50 years.…”