ABSTRACT
Seismic reliability based life-cycle cost analysis of aging highway bridges often rely on simplified assumptions for deterioration modeling of critical bridge components. For instance, corrosion degradation of reinforced concrete columns is typically approximated using uniform loss of steel area. While this may be realistic for carbonation induced corrosion, chloride corrosion (from marine environments or deicing salts) is typically manifested in the form of pits or crevices at discrete areas along with uniform loss of steel. This nonuniform and highly localized deterioration mechanism maybe difficult to detect or predict and is likely to be more detrimental than uniform corrosion. This paper proposes a new probabilistic model for corrosion deterioration and assesses the impact on the seismic vulnerability and life-cycle cost analysis of highway bridge structures. Results reveal a significant increase in life-cycle cost estimates for the realistic pitting corrosion model compared to uniform corrosion and pristine bridge structure.
