ABSTRACT
Over time, bridges reduce their expected performance levels to environmental and mechanical effects under service loads or extreme events. This research presents a methodology to include corrosion and fatigue deterioration processes in the bridge analysis. In addition, performance and reliability assessments of the structure over time are conducted based on current design standards: strength, fatigue and serviceability. Uncertainties related to estimation of vehicle load, properties of the materials and parameters associated with corrosion are included by means of a probabilistic distribution.
These techniques are applied to a real case study, the Bicentenario Oriente Bridge, currently under construction in Concepción, Chile. The steel girders of a particular span are studied and by means of a fault tree analysis the reliability of the system is calculated by reliability at element level. This analysis allows an evaluation of the proposed methodology and verification of the expected diagnoses for bridges with similar structure.
