Life cycle analysis of highway composite bridges

Highway bridges are important assets in every infrastructure network. The cost of construction and operation of highway bridges are key issues for bridge engineers. However, the design of bridges requires more than compiling with safety requirements according to safety standards and economic constraints. The construction, operation and ultimately the way the bridge is demolished have a significant impact on the environment, in the surrounding population and in the users of the bridge. The multidimensional perspective of sustainability requires the combination of current design criteria with other important aspects such as society and environment, usually considering a life cycle approach. The aim of this paper is to present the framework for integrated life cycle analysis of bridges, which is being developed within the scope of the European Research Project SBRI. Furthermore, in this paper the developed approach is applied to a case study in order to enhance the importance of using life cycle approaches for the analysis of bridges.