Condition Assessment by Visual Inspection for a Bridge Management System

The development of a reliable bridge man- agement system (BMS) constitutes a formidable engi- neering challenge due to both the multiobjective nature of the task and the large information to be considered in formulating the required automated judgments. This article deals with a procedure for bridge condition as- sessment by visual inspection developed during the plan- ning and preliminary design of the BMS for the public railway networks in Italy. The main modules adopted in the procedure are: bridge inventory, computer-aided vi- sual inspection, automated defect catalog, and priority- ranking procedure. The probabilistic models used to cal- ibrate the condition evaluation algorithm are discussed. Different levels of deficiency have been individuated for each class of bridge structure belonging to the managed stock. The procedure allows comparison and relative ranking of deficiency conditions across different types of bridge structures. The results of a visual inspection cam- paign conducted for a set of bridges with different struc- tural characteristics are reported and evaluated within the framework of the developed BMS.

[1]  Bojidar Yanev,et al.  Bridge maintenance level assessment , 2002 .

[2]  Dan M. Frangopol,et al.  Updating Bridge Reliability Based on Bridge Management Systems Visual Inspection Results , 2003 .

[3]  Dan M. Frangopol,et al.  Life-cycle reliability-based optimization of civil and aerospace structures , 2003 .

[4]  Hugh Hawk,et al.  The BRIDGIT Bridge Management System , 1998 .

[5]  L O Moser,et al.  BRIDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS , 1987 .

[6]  Safety,et al.  Bridge maintenance, safety and management : proceedings of the First International Conference on Bridge Maintenance, Safety and Management : IABMAS'02, Barcelona, Spain, 14-17 july 2002 , 2002 .

[7]  Michael Havbro Faber,et al.  Condition Indicators for Inspection Planning of Concrete Structures , 2002 .

[8]  Bojidar Yanev.  The management of bridges in New York City , 1996 .

[9]  Allen R. Marshall,et al.  The PONTIS bridge management system , 1998 .

[10]  Marjan Sarshar,et al.  A Geographic Information System (GIS)–Based Bridge Management System , 1999 .

[11]  P. Thompson,et al.  The Pontis Bridge Management System, Structural Engineering International , 1998 .

[12]  Toula Onoufriou,et al.  Reliability-based inspection optimization of complex structures: a brief retrospective , 2002 .

[13]  John Bjerrum,et al.  CREATING A BRIDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM , 1998 .

[14]  Marja-Kaarina Söderqvist,et al.  THE FINNISH BRIDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM , 1993 .

[15]  Ayaho Miyamoto,et al.  Bridge Management System and Maintenance Optimization for Existing Bridges , 2000 .

[16]  Palle Thoft-Christensen,et al.  An Expert System for Concrete Bridge Management , 1997 .

[17]  Dan M. Frangopol,et al.  Performance evaluation of concrete slabs of existing bridges using neural networks , 2003 .