ABSTRACT
Aging highway bridges across the globe have demonstrated susceptibility to damage during earthquake events resulting in potential economic losses due to direct structural damage as well as indirect losses due to traffic rerouting and business interruptions. Bridge owners and stakeholders responsible for the management of bridges are often constrained by economic resources for the seismic upgrade of highway bridges within the regional inventory. In this regard, seismic life-cycle cost estimation methodology has emerged as a powerful tool to facilitate such decision-making processes. This study presents a metamodel-based approach for seismic life-cycle cost assessment of bridge structures that present significant advantages over traditional methods for expected seismic loss predictions. The proposed approach can aid in efficient channeling of monetary resources for structural upgrade and seismic risk-preparedness based on the economic consequences of individual bridges within the transportation network. The proposed approach also helps avert potential double counting from multiple component damage while calculating system-level losses.
