The General Architecture of a European Bridge Management System

INCER 2012 Bucharest, Romania

PhD. Student, MSc, Dipl. Eng. Laurentiu Pavelescu Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest Faculty of Railways, Roads and Bridges Bucharest, Romania laurentiu.pavelescu@gmail.com
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I.

INTRODUCTION

A so-called Bridge Management System (often abbreviated as BMS) addresses all activities throughout the life of a bridge from conception through design and construction, and finally to replacement or demolition and is aimed at ensuring their safety and functionality.

This requires techniques and procedures that ensure that bridges are regularly inspected and assessed, and that appropriate maintenance is carried out to achieve a required standard of condition throughout their service life.

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BMS - principal modules:

1. Inventory of the stock; 2. Knowledge of bridge and element condition and its variation with age; 3. Evaluation of the risks incurred by users (including assessment of load carrying capacity); 4. Management of operational restrictions and of the routing of exceptional convoys; 5. Evaluation of the costs of the various maintenance strategies; 6. Forecast the deterioration of condition and the costs of various maintenance strategies; 7. Socio-economic importance of the bridge (evaluation of the indirect costs); 8. Optimization under budgetary constraints; 9. Establishment of maintenance priorities; 10. Budgetary monitoring on a short and long-term basis.
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Fig. 1: Interconnections between inputs, models and outputs for BMS (according to BRIME)

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II.

FRAMEWORK
There is no easy way to define the interrelationships between the BMS inputs, models and outputs there are many variables that a manager should take into account and this yields very complicated flow charts for the entire BMS, if one wants to use full names for inputs, outputs and models. The models inter-connections are explained through the outputs of some models that can stand as derived inputs for other models (see Table 1).

The models are analyzed in accordance with the two levels of management: the project and network level.

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III.

MODELS

The models range from a to j and they are the essential key of deriving an output from an initial input (keeping in mind that an output can play the role of a derived input for another model). a. This model is used to derive a measure for the condition of each structural element and component of the bridge inspection by observations, material testing and information in the inventory. b. The model b provides a measure for the overall condition state of a bridge through the combination of the condition state values for all elements and components.

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c. The model c is supposed to use information in the inventory such as the engineering calculations and the final drawings to derive the initial load carrying capacity measured in terms of load, reduction factor or reliability index. At this stage, should be identified the most structurally vulnerable parts of the bridge as well. d. The key point for this model is to predict the variation of the condition of the bridge, in its entirety, or of some elements of the bridge. This prediction is made with the aid of the test histories and inspections conducted for the bridges in the managers stock. The results can be presented in a discrete fashion, i.e. for every n years we can derive the so-called condition statetime trajectory.

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d. The model e is the one that predicts the imperative of maintenance works, whenever the poor condition of a specific bridge makes it unsafe / inadequate for the general use. This is a challenging matter for engineers and managers. The following inputs are to be taken into account:

the latest load carrying capacity; the structurally vulnerable parts of the bridge; the condition state-time trajectory for the vulnerable parts; information from the assessment history of the bridge.

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e. Evidently, the manager and the engineers will base their maintenance strategies on the cause of the deteriorations and they will implement those strengthening / repairing / consolidating techniques that best fit the situation. It is a direct relationship between the maintenance method and the cost that is involved, so this model should as accurate as possible. f. One of the biggest challenges for a bridge manager is to generate economic viable solutions whenever the traffic restrictions are imposed due to maintenance work. There are means by which the engineers can predict the costs involved by these traffic disruptions, using, for instance, traffic data, the duration of the predicted restriction and the type of vehicles that will be rerouted.

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g. There are several ways that a manager of a pile of bridges can use in order to select the correct maintenance strategy, such as the analysis of the results generated by inventory, the cost of different interventions, the cause of the observed deteriorations, the costs generated by the traffic disruptions, the minimum required life after the consolidation / repair / strengthening of the bridge, etc. h. There are many intervention strategies that an administrator can choose, but some of them are imposed by the bridges condition. If a bridge has a poor condition but it meets the load carrying capacity demands, the most likely strategy of intervention is a general repair. A preventive approach is the right one whenever deterioration has not yet occurred to a great level but the choice for such an action will conduct to reducing the rate of deterioration and lifetime costs.
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i.

The final objective of a Bridge Management System is to generate a maintenance programme for every bridge in a specific pile (we refer to this as the project level). This intervention should take into account optimization methods for reducing the total life-time costs and improve the general condition based on factors such as: information in the inventory; the choice of optimal maintenance method; maintenance costs and lives; delay costs; the rate of deterioration (condition state-time trajectories); the life required of the bridge; the extent of deterioration; the date when essential maintenance becomes necessary; the discount rate used in lifetime costing.

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The models from a to j are involved with analyzing data and deriving based on them the correct decisions about the intervention strategies of particular bridges, the project level of a bridge management system. The next four models, model to model analyze and conduct a manager to take the right decisions for pile of bridges, the so-called network level of a bridge management system. The bridges chosen to be within the stock can depend on many factors such as: the region of the stock of bridges; type of road: European and national roads, county roads, rural / local roads; type of bridge here we can imagine different classification factors, such as material, the obstacle they cross, etc.

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Sometimes, it is not feasible to undertake the intervention operations for each bridge due to the budgetary restrictions (the most pressing ones) or due to different constraints that can occur. This status quo involves a differential approach for improving a whole network than the particular operations a bridge needs in order to be fully functional. These considerations imply restrictions / constraints that the optimization should imbed, such as: budgetary constraints; the efficiency of the whole network, rather than a particular bridge; the public policies.

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The administrator is most likely to wish that his policy targets (yet another constraint) for the condition of the whole stock and individual bridges are being satisfied. According to BRIME, some policy target parameters may include the following: number of bridges with load restrictions of different degrees; number of bridges with other traffic restrictions number of substandard bridges; annual traffic delay costs due to restrictions and maintenance works; number of bridges overdue an inspection; number of replacements each year; average condition of the stock; number of bridges with condition state greater than X; number of bridges containing one or more elements with a condition state greater than Y.

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IV. THE FRAMEWORK BASIC INPUTS

As can be seen in Figure 1, a letter is assigned for every input, varying from A, for Inventory up to O for the Policy Parameter Targets. A full list is given bellow:

A - Inventory B - Inspection C - Test Data D - Inspection history E - Test history F - Assessment history G - Traffic data H - Duration of restriction

I - Future maintenance free life (MFL) of repair J - Compendium of maintenance life/costs K - Future life required L - Maintenance history/policy M - Discount Rate N - Constraints O - Policy Parameter Targets

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V. THE FRAMEWORK MODELLING

A list of the calculations (or models) representing the actual means by which we can obtain an output starting from an initial input is presented below.

It should be underlined that the Roman letters stand for the project level of a Bridge Management System, whereas the Greek letters represent the network level of a BMS.

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a Condition state of element b Condition state for bridge c Assessment of LCC assuming no deterioration d Rate of deterioration/prediction future condition e Predict future LCC f Cause/extent of deterioration g Traffic delays h Optimal maintenance method i Decide maintenance strategy j Optimal maintenance programme Prioritization model Implication model Comparison model Budget variation model

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VI. THE FRAMEWORK OUTPUTS

In direct correspondence with the previous chapter, here-bellow is presented the frameworks outputs, with the mention that the values in parenthesis represent the outputs for the network level BMS, the first (from 1 to 11) being the outputs for the project level of a BMS.

1 Current condition state (elements) 2 Current condition state (bridge) 3 Original LCC and Critical areas 4 Condition state/time trajectory for each element 5 Condition state/time trajectory for bridge 6 Date for essential maintenance 7 Cause/extent of deterioration
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8 Delay costs due to maintenance or restrictions 9 Optimum maintenance method 10 Best maintenance strategy 11 Optimal maintenance programme (12) Prioritized maintenance programme (13) Values of policy parameters (14) Degree of compliance with policy parameter targets (15) Budget needed to obtain say 90% compliance

From Table 1 one can easily read any inputs that are associated with a specific output. Remembering the fact that some of the outputs can play the role of derived inputs, i.e. some of the outputs are inputs themselves for different models (or calculations) and generate other outputs, the Figure 1 can be rearranged in a more synthetic fashion as in Table 1.

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OUTPUT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 (12)

DERIVED INPUTS

BASIC INPUTS A,B,C

1 A D E 3,4 F B,C 6 7,8,10 1,3,4,6,8 4,3,8,9,7,6 11 G,H A,I,J A,K,L A,J,K,M N

TABLE I. INPUTS ASSOCIATED WITH OUTPUTS (SEE FIGURE 1)

(13)
(14) (15)

(12)
(13) (14) O

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CONCLUSIONS
The key point of this paper is that a computerised Bridge Management System can be created starting from the main activities of management such as, maintenance, inspections, technical expertise, testing, etc. The analyses was conducted respecting the two levels of management, i.e. the project level (dealing with specific, particular bridges) and the network level (dealing with a whole pile of bridges). This framework was developed as a result of a comparative analysis of the European Bridge Management Systems that are in force nowadays and is the proposal of the BRIME committee for a unified management system.

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CONCLUSIONS
Romania has to implement a Bridge Management System of this kind that must comply, not necessarily in its entirety, with the general architecture of this European BMS and also incorporate the supplementary constraints of our technical norms in force. The advantages of having o fully operational BMS is that the managers are aided in their decisions by a systemized and computerised tool that can help them find answers to a variety of questions, one of the most important one being the prediction question what if... ?. This kind of management system can be further on developed to be intergrated into a more complex one: a inter-connected Pavement Management System with a Bridge Management System.
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