Modelling life cycle costs for edge beams of three Norwegian bridges

Abstract

For the planning of cost-effective infrastructure maintenance, it is important to assess the condition of structures and to estimate the optimum time, the extent and the type of repair needed to continue operating the structures safely. In this study, a novel approach is presented, which combines data from condition assessment of reinforced concrete structures (e.g. chloride profiles), predictive modelling (future chloride ingress) and experimentally determined chloride threshold values (Ccrit) on cores retrieved from the structures with a method recently developed at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. This approach is applied to three bridges in Norway.