Influence of Maintenance Strategies on the Life Cycle Performance of Composite Highway Bridges

In the context of sustainability, life cycle approaches are becoming increasingly popular for the assessment of potential impacts of a product or a system, from raw materials production to decommissioning and end-of-life processes. In relation to highway bridges, lifetime analysis implies consideration of the way the bridge is maintained over the lifespan of the analysis. Different maintenance strategies can be defined depending on the policy followed by highway administrations, which are usually subject to budget restraints. An overview of different European practices in the maintenance of highway bridges is provided in this paper; then, a methodology for life cycle analysis of bridges is presented, which enables assessment of the influence of different strategies of maintenance of highway bridges, in terms of environmental burdens, and direct and indirect costs over the lifespan of the bridge. The discussion is based on a case study of a composite bridge crossing a dual carriageway. The methodology presented in this paper is part of a research work carried out in the framework of the European research project SBRI: Sustainable Steel-Composite Bridges in Built Environment.