NEWSLETTER
Synopsis of "State-of-the-Art Report for Bridges"
Dr Victoria Hogg, Highways Agency, London
The full article may be found on the ASRANet web site (www.asranet.com/asranet soa Bridges.html)
|
|
NEWSLETTERSynopsis of "State-of-the-Art Report for Bridges" |
The paper covers the application of integrated advanced structural analysis and reliability analysis within the (highway) bridge industry.
Within the bridge industry, there are three distinct areas of application of the above techniques. These are:
Within both design and assessment, reliability analysis is used mainly in the field of code calibration, for the derivation/modification of partial factors. Furthermore, within assessment, it is used in conjunction with (advanced) structural analysis for the specific assessment of individual structures to determine whether or not they are "safe", relative to some defined target reliability index (which can be estimated using different approaches). Finally, in the emerging field of bridge management, reliability-based bridge management systems, which incorporate time-variant reliability analysis and whole-life cost optimisation techniques, are being used to manage the maintenance of structures at a network level.
The paper presents the state-of-the-art in these three distinct areas of application. A summary of the emergent key issues is presented and suggestions made for possible areas of future work.
