ABSTRACT
One of the most important tasks in the operation of a sound bridge
management system (BMS) is inspection of the bridge. It is ‘the keystone of
our knowledge’ of the bridge. Apart from initial recording of the basic bridge
data, regular reporting of a bridge’s condition provides a way of alerting bridge
engineers to deterioration of the bridge from whatever cause, be it damage
from vehicles, fracture, or material breakdown, and enables a bridge engineer
to assess maintenance requirements. A great deal of experience and technical
understanding is required to expedite an inspection in a methodical and
systematic way. Inspection has, therefore, to be carried out by professional
engineers, or at least supervised by a professional engineer. Each bridge is
unique, and its form and layout will dictate the focus of the inspection, for
example, arch bridges suffer in totally different ways from prestressed
concrete box girder bridges and steel is different from timber.
