Bridge Management System and Maintenance Optimization for Existing Bridges

Of late, the maintenance of bridges has become a major social concern, and thus the development of a practical bridge management system (BMS) is required. This paper describes a study that attempts to develop a new BMS for deteriorated concrete bridges by evaluating the output results from a bridge rating expert system currently under development. The proposed BMS offers various cost minimization and quality maximization. Genetic algorithms (GAs) are adopted for solving the optimization problem. These algorithms, which are based on the theory of evolution, create a suitable individual (optimal) solution through the repetition of 3 operators: selection, crossover, and mutation. Furthermore, applications to several existing concrete bridges are presented so as to demonstrate the validity of the proposed BMS.