Proposal Based on the Social Assessment Methodology for a Scenario in which the Road Network Faces a Bridge Collapse. Case Study: Seminario Bridge, Chile

In Chile several natural hazards (earthquakes, landslides, etc.) create high road structure vulnerability resulting in road disruption. One of these conditions can be exemplified by the collapse of a road bridge resulting in high human and economic cost.

The current Bridge Management System must provide comprehensive inspection, diagnosis and intervention (strengthening or repair) protocols, always with a limited budget. For that reason, the budget allocated to O&M is usually reduced and has to be technically justified.

A tool to provide adequate decision-making is to know the direct and indirect costs associated with the collapse of the bridge and how this collapse impacts on the funding allocated to management activities.

This paper is a proposal based on the social assessment methodology to quantify the direct and indirect costs of a bridge collapse on a route that is critical for the Chilean road network, following the current social assessment methodology and applying it to a specific bridge. An analysis and comparison of the funding of inspection and monitoring is carried out. This analysis considers visual inspection, UAV, NDT and instrumentation of the bridge.

This creative work is copyrighted material and may not be used without explicit approval by the author and/or copyright owner.