Bridge structure evaluation based on Analytic Hierarchy Process

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) provides a quantitative decision-making tool integrating subjective and objective factors for bridge structure safety assessment by building a hierarchical model. Based on the theoretical evolution and technical breakthrough of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in the field of bridge evaluation, this paper proposes a three-level decoupling strategy of "goal-criterion-index" in view of the limitations of traditional methods on nonlinear coupling effects and dynamic data fusion. The dominant damage factors are screened through sensitivity analysis, and the subjective weight deviation is corrected by combining entropy weight method. The evaluation system of representativeness and calculation economy is constructed. This paper takes a cantilever beam bridge as a case to verify the effectiveness of AHP in risk classification. Through the empirical research results, it can be seen that in the cantilever beam bridge case, the risk levels of the key components such as bored pile and pier column are respectively Ⅱ and Ⅲ, and the evaluation results are in agreement with the field test up to 92.3%. The research reveals the theoretical advantages of AHP method in quantifying tacit knowledge through weight allocation and mapping multi-dimensional correlation through hierarchical structure.