Synthetic Rating Procedures for Railway Bridges

One of the most important parts of any bridge management system is the condition assessment and rating of bridges. This paper introduces a procedure for condition assessment, based on criticality and vulnerability analysis. According to this procedure, new rating equations are developed. The inventory data are used to determine the contribution of different critical factors such as environmental effects, flood, earthquake, wind, and vehicle impacts. The criticality of the components to live load and vulnerability of the components to the preceding critical factors are identified. Based on the criticality and the vulnerability of the components and criticality of factors, and by using the new rating equations, the condition assessment and the rating of the railway bridges and their components at the network level will be conducted. This method, for the first time, incorporates structural analysis, available knowledge of risk assessment in structural engineering standards, and the experience of structural engineers in a practical way for enhancing the reliability of condition assessment for rating a network of bridges.