Operational Structural Performances of Bridge Materials by Deterioration Trends
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 28, Issue 1
Abstract
This paper demonstrates the analysis of the deterioration trends of bridges to evaluate the operational structural performances of the various kinds of bridge construction materials and/or structural designs. The goal of this study is to improve the performance of structural materials used to construct bridges, based on rigorous population-based analysis of the performance of those materials in service. The analysis uses the raw database of the entire National Bridge Inventory in the United States and derives material deterioration aspects at the serviceability limit states. The study develops measures of deterioration to consider the trends in the accumulation of structural deficiency versus service life cycle by material. The approach defines the criteria of rate and pattern performances to analyze the comparative deterioration trends. A multiple-criteria diagnostic approach determines the overall equivalent structural performances integrating the rate and pattern performances with the measures of condition, durability, and longevity. The national network-level operational experience by categorical deterioration trends produces the most comprehensive comparative basis of structural performance of bridge materials. Overall for all bridges, the average increase of structural deficiency is 0.51%/year, adding to the already existing 12.35% and consisting of an average annual increase of structurally deficient bridges by 4.10%. The accumulation of structurally deficient bridges begins only after 10 years for most materials. The rate and pattern performances of almost all of the materials are quite poor. Thus, the equivalent performances integrating the deterioration trends are lower. The results provide a more objective indication and comparison of structural performances under the actual circumstances and help predict future performance. The approach supports the development of improvements necessary to increase the relative performances of distinct bridge materials for more sustainable service.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Aktan, A. E., et al. (1996). “Condition assessment for bridge management.” J. Infrastruct. Syst., 108–117.
Aktan, A. E., Dalal, V., Farhey, D. N., and Hunt, V. J. (1995). “Bridge reliability evaluation in the 21st century.” Proc., Research Transformed into Practice—Implementation of NSF Research, J. Colville and A. M. Amde, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 493–505.
Alampalli, S., and Washer, G. A., eds. (2002). Proc., Structural Materials Technology V—An NDT Conf., American Society for Nondestructive Testing, Columbus, OH.
AASHTO. (1994). Manual for condition evaluation of bridges, 2nd Ed., Washington, DC.
AASHTO. (2003). Guide manual for condition evaluation and load and resistance factor rating (LRFR) of highway bridges, Washington, DC.
AASHTO. (2007). “Meeting the needs of America’s bridges, the voice of transportation.” Publication Code MNAB-1, Washington, DC.
Ben-Akiva, M., Humplick, F., Madanat, S., and Ramaswamy, R. (1993). “Infrastructure management under uncertainty: Latent performance approach.” J. Transp. Eng., 43–58.
Darbani, B. M., and Hammad, A. (2007). “Critical review of new directions in bridge management systems.” Proc., ASCE Int. Workshop on Computing in Civil Engineering, L. Soibelman and B. Akinci, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 330–337.
Dunker, K. F., and Rabbat, B. G. (1990). “Highway bridge type and performance patterns.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 161–173.
Ellingwood, B. R. (2005). “Risk-informed condition assessment of civil infrastructure: State of practice and research issues.” Struct. Infrastruct. Eng., 1(1), 7–18.
Farhey, D. N. (2010). “Performance of bridge materials by structural deficiency analysis.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 345–352.
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (1995). “Recording and coding guide for the structure inventory and appraisal of the nation's bridges.” Rep. No. FHWA-PD-96-001, Washington, DC.
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2000). “Our nation’s highways—2000.” Rep. FHWA-PL-01-1012, Office of Highway Policy Information (OHPI), Washington, DC.
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2003). “Status of the nation’s highways, bridges, and transit: 2002 conditions and performance report.” 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi.htm〉 (Feb. 10, 2005).
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2007). “National bridge inventory (NBI).” 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi.htm〉 (May 23, 2007).
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2011a). “Advancing steel and concrete bridge technology to improve infrastructure performance.” DTFH61-11-RA-00010, 〈http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=95953〉 (May 20, 2011).
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2011b). “LTBP: Long-term bridge performance program.” 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/programs/infrastructure/structures/ltbp/〉 (Jun. 28, 2011).
Frangopol, D. M., Kong, J. S., and Gharaibeh, E. S. (2001). “Reliability-based lifecycle management of highway bridges.” J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 27–34.
Frangopol, D. M., Strauss, A., and Kim, S. (2008). “Bridge reliability assessment based on monitoring.” J. Bridge Eng., 258–270.
Furuta, H., Kameda, T., and Frangopol, D. M., eds. (2004) “Balance of structural performance measures.” Proc., 2004 Structures Congress—Building on the Past: Securing the Future, G. E. Blandford, ed., ASCE, Reston, VA, 19–23.
Ghasemi, H., Penrod, J., and Hooks, J. M. (2009). “Developing advanced methods of assessing bridge performance.” Public roads, 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/09novdec/04.cfm〉 (Jun. 13, 2011).
Kong, J. S., and Frangopol, D. M. (2003). “System reliability modeling in bridge management.” Proc., 9th Int. Bridge Management Conf., Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, DC, 361–372.
Liu, M., Frangopol, D. M., and Kim, S. (2009). “Bridge system performance assessment from structural health monitoring: A case study.” J. Struct. Eng., 733–742.
Mishalani, R. G., and Koutsopoulos, H. N. (1995). “Uniform infrastructure fields: Definition and identification.” J. Infrastruct. Syst., 44–55.
Moon, F. L., Laning, J., Lowdermilk, D. S., Chase, S., Hooks, J., and Aktan, A. E. (2009). “A pragmatic risk-based approach to prioritizing bridges.” Proc., Nondestructive Characterization for Composite Materials, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, and Homeland Security 2009, H. F. Wu, A. A. Diaz, P. J. Shull, and D. W. Vogel, eds., Vol. 7294, The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), Bellingham, WA, 1–11.
Preparata, F. P., and Shamos, M. I. (1985). Computational geometry, Springer, New York.
Saito, M., ed. (1997). Proc., Infrastructure Condition Assessment: Art, Science, and Practice, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Sanford, K. L., Herabat, P., and McNeil, S. (1999). “Bridge management and inspection data: Leveraging the data and identifying the gaps.” Proc., 8th Int. Bridge Management Conf., Vol. 1, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, DC, B1/1–15.
Stewart, M. G. (2001). “Reliability-based assessment of ageing bridges using risk ranking and life cycle cost decision analyses.” Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf., 74(3), 263–273.
Weidner, J., Prader, J., Dubbs, N., Moon, F., and Aktan, A. E. (2009). “Structural identification of bridges to assess safety and performance.” Proc., 2009 Structures Congress, L. Griffis, T. Helwig, M. Waggoner, and M. Hoit, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 119–124.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 15, 2012
Accepted: Sep 12, 2012
Published online: Jan 15, 2014
Published in print: Feb 1, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.