Making sense of risk management for timber bridges

Effective management of timber bridges is an ongoing problem for most rural councils around Australia. There are many reasons why you need to know the strength and condition of your timber bridge stock , not the least of which is public safety. The assessment procedures developed by the Centre for Built Infrastructure Research at UTS in partnership with IPWEA provide a relatively simple, yet sophisticated method for testing timber bridges in order to quantify safe load capacity. Over 200 bridges and 380 spans have now been tested using this award-winning, innovative method. This experience has highlighted a number of different reasons you might test particular bridges in order to help you manage these critical links in the road network. The following paper presents a review of assessment techniques used for timber bridges, such as visual condition rating; desk top analysis and load testing and discusses issues such as: knowing what to use, where, and understanding limitations of each method; why and when to test; risk management and reliable load rating that is fit for purpose. Several case studies are also presented that illustrate why and when to test bridges and the benefits that can come from this type of assessment process.