Demonstrating the Test Procedure for Preventive Maintenance of Aging Concrete Bridges

Deteriorated facility maintenance is a critical social issue in advanced countries. Its cost increases when considering the social consequences in terms of asset value and direct maintenance costs. Data from Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport shows that there were 3454 bridges aged 30 years or over in Korea in 2017; this number will increase to 10,961 by 2027. In thirty years, maintenance costs will be incurred for more than 32,000 old bridges in Korea. These trends are also observed in the US, Japan, and Korea. Diverse studies have been conducted to predict the residual life of old bridges via bridge performance evaluation and load-carrying capacity assessments. However, criteria for evaluating bridge performance and verifying the effect of bridge maintenance are yet to be established due to two reasons. First, most studies on performance evaluation, maintenance, and rehabilitation techniques have been performed on limited specimens from building elements or through small-scale simulations that do not reflect the deterioration factors of complex materials in diverse environments. Second, the performance evaluation of bridges is difficult compared to quantitative state evaluations. As a method of predicting the future performance of aged concrete bridges, it is effective to understand the actual aged bridges through experiments, and this study intends to propose the method.

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