APPLICATION OF LIFE CYCLE RELIABILITY-BASED CRITERIA TO BRIDGE ASSESSMENT AND DESIGN

The use of probabilistic methods and concepts of structural reliability are widely accepted by bridge engineers and increasingly used in bridge assessment and design codes. There are several aspects of bridge assessment and design however that have not been significantly explored. These include time-dependent reliability problems such as bridge strength degradation due to environmentally aggressive factors and life cycle reliability-based cost optimisation of bridges taking into account initial, inspection, repair and failure costs. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the results obtained at the University of Colorado on the life cycle reliability cost optimisation of concrete bridges. Time-independent and time-dependent approaches are described. For the covering abstract see IRRD 898092.