Uncertainty of Maintenance Strategies for Bridge Sustainability Assessment

To perform a sustainability assessment for bridges forecasts of the renewal cycles have to be made. The paper concentrates on impacts during the life cycle of highway bridges with a span of approximately 50 m. The spatial boundaries are set to the country of Germany. Considering these boundary conditions, approaches for the renewal cycles of all bridge components based on statistical analysis of the German road infrastructure information system (SIB-Bauwerke) are presented. Aspects like data quality and restrictions of the database are discussed. These input data are used to derive three possible maintenance strategies: preventive maintenance, condition-based maintenance and permitted deterioration. These strategies are suitable to include scenario uncertainties into the sustainability assessment of bridges with a life span of at least 100 years.