Suggestion of Performance Evaluation Method for Effective Maintenance of Small-sized Aged Bridges

Current efforts to assess the performance of bridges are essential to evaluate them as valuable assets. Through the amendment of the Special Act on Safety Management of Facilities in 2020, performance evaluations of first-and second-class bridge facilities and safety grade assessments of third-class bridge facilities were conducted. However, bridges categorized as third class and classes excluded from the Facility Safety Act lack a system for performance evaluation. Additionally, the performance degradation of these third-class and class-excluded bridges affects the overall performance of the interconnected road system. Therefore, this study proposes a comprehensive performance evaluation method that considers safety, durability, and usability for an efficient performance assessment of third-class and class-excluded bridges. Owing to the various constraints in evaluating small and aging bridges over a short period, a prioritization method is suggested. Based on appropriate indicators of bridge performance from a simple visual inspection, a performance evaluation plan for aging small-and medium-sized bridges is presented.