Assessment of bridges via monitoring

Abstract

The prediction of a realistic life cycle and the extension of the service life is an important task in reducing costs of civil engineering structures in the future. The paper first gives an overview of the necessary steps of the overall procedure of a precise life cycle assessment. The knowledge of the existing, inherent damage of a structure is an essential prerequisite for life cycle prediction. A theoretical and an experimental approach to determine the inherent damage is described. The paper concludes with the presentation of a fairly precise method to assess the fatigue life cycle of steel bridges. The methods are developed besides others at the Collaborative-Research-Center “Monitoring of Structures” at the Technical University at Braunschweig, Germany.

Keywords:

• Life cycle
• Anamnesis
• Monitoring
• Fatigue
• Damage assessment

Acknowledgements

The financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG (German Science Foundation) within the framework of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 477 “Monitoring of Structures” is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

First published online 2 March 2005.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Udo Peil

First published online 2 March 2005.