ABSTRACT
Recent bridge failures highlighted that bridges are key elements for guaranteeing the functionality of transportation systems. The main causes of bridge’s deterioration are the exposure to environmental conditions and the steadily increase of traffic volume. Hence, timely maintenance interventions are crucial to guarantee adequate performance levels. To the purpose, the actual practice is mainly based on visual inspections. Recently, the “Guidelines for risk classification and management, safety assessment and monitoring of bridges” issued in 2020 by the Italian Ministry of Sustainable Mobility promoted the use of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems. Hence, the goal of the present work is to develop a general framework able to evaluate the costs and benefits of different SHM-based strategies in a life-cycle perspective. The results highlight the twofold potentiality of the proposed framework in quantifying and updating in a unified manner the bridge’s lifetime expenses, and in comparing different alternatives of SHM systems.
