The Importance of Bridge Health Monitoring

In the past, there were many bridge-s collapses due to lack of bridge structural capacity information. Most of concrete bridge health was relied on information from visual inspection, which sometime was inadequate. This study was conducted in order to investigate relationship between bridge structural condition and bridge visual condition. This study was a part of a big project conducted at Department of Highways of Thailand. In this study, 31 bridges including slab-type bridges, plank-girder bridges, prestressed box-beam bridges, prestressed I-girder bridges and prestressed multibeam bridges were selected for visual inspection and load test. It was found a positive correlation between bridge appearance and bridge-s load carrying capacity. However, statistical characteristic revealed low correlation between them.

Authors:

• Punya Chupanit
• Chayatan Phromsorn

Keywords:

• Bridge
• Visual Inspection
• Load Test
• Condition Rating
• Rating Factor

References:

[1] "National Cooperative Highway Research program", Research Results
Digest, No. 234, November 1998.
[2] AASHTO, Manual for the Condition Evaluation of Bridges,
Washington, D.C., 1994, Revised by 1995, 1996, 1998 and 2000
Interim Revisions.
[3] AASHTO, Guide Specifications for Strength Evaluation of Existing
Steel and Concrete Bridges, Washington, D.C., 1989.