ABSTRACT
Highway bridges are constantly subjected to deterioration mechanisms that contribute to an overall decrease in structural resistance and increase in loads over their life-cycle. In order to ensure that the performance of bridges is maintained throughout their lifetime, cost efficient bridge intervention planning must be considered. An optimization procedure for life-cycle inspection and maintenance planning of highway bridges is proposed herein. The proposed approach considers three objectives: the minimization of life-cycle costs, the maximization of sustainability, and the minimization of the expected damage detection delay, all in a probabilistic, life-cycle context. Utility functions are used in order to consistently quantify and compare the three aforementioned objectives. Overall, the proposed approach can be used to establish optimum lifetime inspection and maintenance plans for highway bridges considering life-cycle costs, sustainability, and expected damage detection delay.
