A New Framework for Condition and Risk Assessment for Sustainable Management of PT Bridges

The state-of-the-art literature in engineering provides information on the current state of technical subjects, shapes the understanding of relevant research, and communicates potential next directions for future exploration in relation with condition and risk assessment and sustainable maintenance of post-tensioned (PT) concrete bridges. However, the formulation of a quantitative methodological framework in selecting suitable safety assessment and management techniques for in-service PT concrete bridges is insufficient in the current literature. The absence of such a framework could render ineffective the sustainability of bridge maintenance strategies. In addition, the failure of structural assets due to deterioration and lack of proper maintenance is regarded as an important risk aspect. This is because structural failure often results in adverse economic, environmental, and safety outcomes. To underscore this, formulating mitigation strategies through sustainable asset maintenance programs is consequential. In recognition of the current limitation, this paper proposes a new framework with a structured methodology for the risk assessment and management of PT concrete bridges. This framework helps the bridge practitioners to navigate through design, inspection results, environmental factors, estimation of probability of failure, and corresponding consequences to calculate the risk and decide on the maintenance. It encompasses the decision on the type and interval of the inspection regime, repair and strengthening, and potentially replacing existing work. The presentation of this framework is original in that it carries the stochastic approach through all steps of risk assessment and maintenance decision making while allowing room for the inclusion of evolving methods. The proposed framework can be used for the development of a complete guide capable of stochastic, reliability-based, data-driven, and quantitative risk assessment and maintenance management for PT concrete bridges.