Bridge maintenance based on asset management

In Japan, a lot of highway bridges have been constructed over past 50 years. At present, these are aging and suffering from damage, deterioration and environmental attack. The number of deteriorating bridges is likely to increase in the near future. Then, it is very important to maintain those existing bridges in satisfactory safety and serviceability levels. Reinforced Concrete (RC) bridge decks, being directly subjected to wheel loads of vehicles, are much more damaged than other structural elements in highway bridges. It is necessary to make appropriate decisions on how to repair, rehabilitate and/or replace the RC bridge decks, taking into account the type of bridges, highway network, traffic condition, and functional constraints. This paper describes a decision supporting system for scheduling the maintenance program of many damaged RC bridge decks. The concept of asset management including life-cycle cost evaluation is adopted in order to obtain the optimal maintenance scheduling for damaged bridges.