Inspection, Monitoring, and Maintenance of Infrastructure Systems in a Life-cycle Context: Emphasis on Bridges

This paper provides a brief overview of the inspection, monitoring, and maintenance scheduling for civil infrastructure systems within the context of life-cycle management under uncertainty. Various methods for determining the optimum life-cycle inspection, monitoring and repair times and types, as well as the impact of such activities on the total life-cycle cost, are discussed in detail. Sources of uncertainty and the objectives of the life-cycle assessment and management are also presented.

Additionally, the integration of these activities with other modules of the general life-cycle management framework responsible for the performance prediction and updating is also discussed. The presented approaches are capable of handling, individually or simultaneously, various deterioration mechanisms such as earthquake effects, fatigue, and corrosion. The role of probabilistic performance indicators including reliability and redundancy is also highlighted. The key achievements in developing the optimization schemes specifically formulated for bridges are discussed.