ABSTRACT
This paper discusses activities that have been developed with Brazilian bridges, in order to monitor and inspect the structural health of highway and railway bridges. The result of the monitoring/inspection campaigns generates data about loads, structural response and characterization of the structure’s material. This information is useful for a later activity of computational numerical models calibration and evaluation of lifetime of the structure with respect to several limit states related to deterioration mechanisms, such as carbonation, corrosion and fatigue. To accomplish such task, probabilistic tools are used along with numerical models that provide the evolution of deterioration over time and as a result of such analysis is the behavior of the reliability index and, consequently, the probability of failure over time. Case studies regarding carbonation and fatigue are presented in order to exemplify the use of deterioration modeling to assess bridge’s remaining life. In addition, it is important to take into account the amount of time a monitoring campaign lasts as well the number of monitored members: as bigger the time and number of sensors, as better the results, and the data better represent the phenomena. The importance of structural health and life lies in an improvement in the form of managing the human and financial resources on the part of the owner of the bridge, generating savings of time and money, since it eliminates unnecessary interventions.
