System Reliability Evaluation of Prefabricated RC Hollow Slab Bridges Considering Hinge Joint Damage Based on Modified AHP

Abstract

The prefabricated reinforced concrete (RC) hollow slab bridges, with the advantages of high quality, lower cost and shorter construction period, have been widely used for small-to-medium-span highway bridges in China. Because of environmental deterioration and traffic volume increases, the performance of the bridge system deteriorates gradually. Accurate bridge system evaluation can provide a reliable basis for maintenance and management. A bridge system is composed of multiple interrelated components, which makes the system reliability evaluation become a computationally intractable work. In this paper, an effective method was proposed to evaluate the system reliability of the prefabricated RC hollow slab bridge considering hinge joint damage based on the modified analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Considering the subjectivity of the traditional AHP method in constructing the judgment matrix, this paper proposed an objective construction method of the judgment matrix to modify the traditional AHP. The modified hinge plate method (MHPM) proposed by the previous research was utilized to analyze the effect of hinge joint damage on system reliability. In order to verify the applicability of the proposed system reliability evaluation method, a simply supported RC hollow slab bridge was selected as the case study and the system reliability indexes were compared with the traditional series and parallel methods. The results indicated that the traditional methods were either too conservative or too radical to objectively evaluate the actual system reliability level of the structure. In contrast, the proposed method in this paper was more suitable for evaluating the system reliability of such bridges, and more accurate in providing maintenance decision makers with a relatively reasonable bridge condition information.

Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process for Structural Health Monitoring and Prioritizing Concrete Bridges in Iran

“…Introduced by Thomas Satty in 1980, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) provides a mechanism for switching the criteria rating into weights [4,42]. AHP is an effective and powerful tool for multi-criteria decision-making approaches.…”

“…A large portion of the national resources of each country is invested in this area. As one of the most important parts of transportation systems, bridges have a critical role in urban development [1][2][3][4][5]. The bridge conditions in the transportation networks are so important that the costs incurred by out-of-service bridges are exorbitant.…”

System Reliability Evaluation of a Bridge Structure Based on Multivariate Copulas and the AHP–EW Method That Considers Multiple Failure Criteria

“…The live load effect Q is the internal force generated by the live load on the structure, where the live load refers to the load whose value changes with time. For the calculation method of the resistance, dead load effect, and live load effect, please refer to References [2,45,46]. The resistance, dead load effect, and live load effect of each slab segment follow a normal distribution [20].…”

“…Bridge structures are an important part of the transportation system and play an important role. The reinforced concrete (RC) simply supported girder bridges, with the characteristics of higher quality and lower cost, have been widely used for small-to-medium-span highway bridges in China [2]. The bridge structure 2 of 19 in service is subjected to the coupling effect of environmental erosion and traffic load, which will cause the aging of concrete components, further reduce the bearing capacity, and even cause the collapse of the bridge [3][4][5].…”

Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process for Structural Health Monitoring and Prioritizing of Concrete Bridges in Iran

“…A large portion of the national resources of each country is invested in this area. As one of the most important parts of transportation systems, bridges have a critical role in urban development [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The bridge conditions in the transportation networks are so important that the costs incurred by out of service bridges are exorbitant.…”