ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Because of the environmental and loading effects, complex deterioration processes of structural performances will be encountered in the management and maintenance of long-span cable-stayed and suspension bridges during the service life. Hence, the methods to evaluate structural performance need to be proposed and improved. The Taizhou bridge is a suspension bridge with three pylons and two main spans (1080 m + 1080 m). The special components such as steel middle pylon and elastic cable result in significant differences between the Taizhou bridge and normal suspension bridges, and more complex deterioration mechanisms of structural performances as well. The relationship between structural performance and performance evaluation is unclear, which cannot provide objective and reasonable guidelines to the management, maintenance and repair activities of the bridge during the service life. Furthermore, the collection, storage, maintenance and application of the data from in-situ testing and monitoring do not have a unified standard. This paper mainly studies the standard of data for performance evaluation of the Taizhou bridge in the following aspects: 1) the brief framework of the data-driven assessment method is schematically established and the entire framework is divided into four levels; 2) the parameters to represent structural performance in aspects of safety, service and durability are proposed according to the available research achievements, specifications and structural analysis; 3) the standards for data collection are established based on the available experiment, testing and monitoring techniques. The final objective of this research is to set up the data standard for performance evaluation of the Taizhou Bridge, which can guide the data collection and storage and serve for the daily management and maintenance activities of large-span bridges.
