COST Action TU1406 quality specifications for roadway bridges (BridgeSpec)

Abstract

Roadway bridges, being one of the most critical road infrastructures components, require regular maintenance actions. Therefore, it becomes important to define strategies to maximize societal benefits, derived from the investment made in these assets. Consequently, this investment should be planned, effectively managed and technically supported by appropriate management systems, supported in quality control plans. For this purpose, authorities need to produce an asset management plan which should, not only define the goals to be achieved by exploiting the roadway bridge network, but also identify the investment needs and priorities based on a life cycle cost criteria. Additionally, a proper condition assessment of these assets must be conducted to support the decision-making process regarding their preservation. A COST Action recently started in Europe with the aim of standardizing the establishment of quality control plans for roadway bridges. This paper describes this Action and, particularly, its most recent developments.

Preventing failure propagation in steel truss bridges

“…The project DURATINET [9], funded by the European Union, presented a classification of damage causes and processes. This was supported also by a more recent study, the COST Action TU1406, called "Quality specifications for roadway bridges, standardization at a European level" [10]. In this Action, the authors studied the different categorization of damages depending on the type of structure and also analysed the relation of these damages with observations, damage indicators, performance indicators and key performance indicators, according to their nomenclature.…”

“…The COST Action TU1406 defines vulnerable zones as "the segments and or elements of a bridge structure in which damages have the largest impact on safety and serviceability. One vulnerable zone may be related to several failure modes" [10]. Adapting this definition to what was defined in Section 3.2, the vulnerable zones of a bridge will depend on the loading conditions of the bridge (i.e., considering traffic loads, wind, etc.…”

“…The COST Action TU1406 also provides a definition of damage as a "process that has a detrimental effect on a bridge, and that may act singly or in combination to generate safety and serviceability problems" [10]. In the context of bridges, damage may be caused by factors such as excessive loads, corrosion, or natural disasters.…”

Performance‐Based Assessment of a Long Span Bridge

“…The study is also limited to the bridge level and not extended to the network level. The author is referred to ([9], [10], [11], [12], [13]).…”