ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: In Japan, maintenance work is becoming more and more important, because the number of existing bridges requiring repair or replacement increases in the coming ten years. In order to establish a rational maintenance program, it is necessary to develop a cost-effective decision-support system that can provide us with a practical and economical plan. Although lowcost maintenance plans are desirable for bridge owner, it is necessary to consider various constraints when choosing an appropriate actual maintenance program. For example, the minimization of maintenance cost requires to prescribe the target safety level and the expected service life time. The predetermination of requirements may loose the variety of possible maintenance plans. Namely, it may be possible to find out a better solution that can largely extend the service life if the safety level can be sensitively decreased even with the same amount of maintenance cost.
