Deterioration Trends and Structural Performances of Bridge Types Using Deck Areas
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 30, Issue 3
Abstract
This paper demonstrates the analysis of the relative deterioration trends of the various types of bridge structural design and/or construction to determine and compare their operational structural performances at the serviceability limit states. The study derives operational data from the entire database of the U.S. National Bridge Inventory and analyzes the actual bridge deck areas rather than bridge counts. Deck areas more realistically reflect the actual sizes of bridge types, enabling a more reliable analysis of deterioration trends and providing more objective structural performances. The study analyzes the trends of the proportional accumulation of deterioration by bridge type, considering criteria based on the concept of structural deficiency and the objective of life-cycle expectancy for uninterrupted service life. The multiple-criteria diagnostic approach integrates the rate and pattern performances, based on deterioration trends, with the condition, durability, and longevity performances to determine and compare the overall equivalent structural performances using prioritized weights. As compared to inventory averages, the results reflect the distinct deterioration trends of bridge types and show a decrease in the equivalent structural performances by 10%. As compared to counts, the equivalent structural performances by areas are lower by 3% for all bridge types and 34–40% for some bridges. Also, the annual maximum average accumulation of structural deficiency of all bridge areas is nearly 20% lower than by counts. The average increase in structural deficiency is 0.42% per year, adding to the already existing 9.38% and constituting an average annual increase of structurally deficient (SD) bridge areas by 4.48%. The analysis also identifies premature accelerated accumulation of deterioration for a particular age group within a bridge type, indicating a critical need to investigate the etiology of the deterioration and improve existing and future bridges. The study provides a comprehensive national network–level comparative experience of the operational structural performances of bridge types by area under actual practices and circumstances to help identify critical deterioration, forecast future structural performance, and promote the sustainability of bridge types.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
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)., Washington, DC.
AASHTO. (2012). LRFD bridge design specifications, 6th Ed., Washington, DC.
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.
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.
Ellingwood, B. R. (2005). “Risk-informed condition assessment of civil infrastructure: State of practice and research issues.” Struct. Infrastruct. Eng.—Maintenance, 1(1), 7–18.
Farhey, D. N. (2010). “Performance of bridge materials by structural deficiency analysis.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 345–352.
Farhey, D. N. (2011). “Operational structural performance of bridge types.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 554–563.
Farhey, D. N. (2012). “Operational structural performances of bridge materials by areas.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 453–461.
Farhey, D. N. (2013). “Operational structural performances of bridge types by areas.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 303–318.
Farhey, D. N. (2014). “Operational structural performances of bridge materials by deterioration trends.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 168–177.
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (1995). Recording and coding guide for the structure inventory and appraisal of the nation’s bridges.”, Washington, DC.
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (2000). “Our nation’s highways—2000.”, Office of Highway Policy Information (OHPI), Washington, DC.
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (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).
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (2007). “National Bridge Inventory (NBI).” 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi.htm〉 (May 23, 2007).
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (2011a). “Advancing steel and concrete bridge technology to improve infrastructure performance.”. 〈http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=95953〉 (May 20, 2011).
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (2011b). “LTBP: Long-term bridge performance program.” 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/programs/infrastructure/structures/ltbp/〉 (Jun. 28, 2011).
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (2012). “Achieving the bridges of tomorrow: The long-term bridge performance program.”. 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/focus/12sep/12sep03.cfm〉 (Sep. 12, 2012).
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (2013a). “FHWA performance reporting—Part one of two—Final report.”. 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/resources/docs/hif13043.pdf〉 (Aug. 21, 2013).
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (2013b). “FHWA performance reporting—Part two of two—Final Report.”. 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/resources/docs/hif13044.pdf〉 (Aug. 21, 2013).
FHWA (Federal Highway Administration). (2013c). “Transportation performance management.” 〈http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/〉 (Aug. 21, 2013).
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. (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, 73(3), 28–35.
Hooks, J. M. (2011). “FHWA long-term bridge performance program.” Aspire—The Concrete Bridge Magazine, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, Chicago.
Kong, J. S., and Frangopol, D. M. (2003). “System reliability modeling in bridge management.” Proc., 9th Int. Bridge Management Conf., IBMC03Transportation Research Circular E-C049, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, DC, 361–372.
Levine, D. M., Ramsey, P. P., and Smidt, R. K. (2001). Applied statistics for engineers and scientists, Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
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., SPIE—Nondestructive Characterization for Composite Materials, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, and Homeland Security, H. F. Wu, A. A. Diaz, P. J. Shull, and D. W. Vogel, eds., Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, Bellingham, WA.
Preparata, F. P., and Shamos, M. I. (1985). Computational geometry, Springer, New York.
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.
SHRP2 (Strategic Highway Research Program 2). (2013). “Design guide for bridges for service life.” 〈http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp2/SHRP2prepubR19AGuide.pdf〉 (Aug. 21, 2013).
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.
Sweet, S. A., and Grace-Martin, K. A. (2012). Data analysis with SPSS: A first course in applied statistics, 4th Ed., Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Weidner, J., Prader, J., Dubbs, N., Moon, F., and Aktan, A. E. (2009). “Structural identification of bridges to assess safety and performance.” Proc., Structures Congress, L. Griffis, T. Helwig, M. Waggoner, and M. Hoit, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 30 • Issue 3 • June 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 12, 2014
Accepted: May 4, 2015
Published online: Jun 16, 2015
Discussion open until: Nov 16, 2015
Published in print: Jun 1, 2016
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.