Formulation and Comparison of Maintenance Strategies using BIM-based Life Cycle Analyses

Most bridge components must be regularly maintained within their life cycle. In Germany, a minimum estimated bridge service life of 100 years has to be applied. Interventions should be mutually harmonized to minimize costs and traffic disruptions. To ensure this, a maintenance strategy should be defined in an early stage, using digital models to enable an updating based on the planning progress and a further use in the operating stage. Many bridge components are predefined by national specifications. This makes it possible to calculate the impacts of typical bridge components in terms of potential life span, replacement costs, replacement cycles, maintenance or repair measures, environmental effects, and their impact on traffic. The required input data can be retrieved from national databases, experience values or manufacturers' data. The presented approach stores these life cycle data for different bridge components in a database. Linking life cycle information to BIM models makes it possible to automatically create a theoretical life cycle maintenance strategy in early planning stages. Strategy-dependent service lives of individual components allow to compare different strategies holistically about costs, environmental and traffic impacts to utilize this information for decision making in the design and operation phase.