Tab Article
Bridges, one of the most critical components of a nation’s infrastructure, have positive socioeconomic impact. Along with an increase in the number of structural deficient bridges in many countries, demands for managing deteriorating bridges and extending their service life efficiently have increased during the last two decades. It is generally acknowledged that life-cycle bridge analysis can be a systematic tool for efficient and effective bridge management. Extensive theoretical and practical approaches for bridge management have been developed. Accordingly, several books dealing with maintenance and safety of deteriorating bridges have been published. However, the existing books contain very broad concepts and applications for maintenance of deteriorating individual bridges without presenting life-cycle cost and performance analyses under uncertainty and without addressing bridge network management under hazards and climate change in a life-cycle context.
In this book, significant concepts and approaches developed recently on bridge safety, maintenance and management in a life-cycle context are systematically addressed. The major topics of this book include (a) bridge safety and service life prediction, (b) bridge inspection and maintenance, (c) life-cycle bridge and bridge network management, (d) resilience and sustainability of bridges and bridge networks under hazards, and (e) bridge management considering climate change. By providing practical applications of the presented concepts and approaches, this book can help students, researchers and practitioners to build up their knowledge on life-cycle bridge performance and cost management at both individual bridge level and network level under various deteriorating effects, hazards and climate change.
