Life-cycle of fatigue sensitive structures under uncertainty

Fatigue is the one of the main contributors to problems related to structural safety of civil and marine structures. Life-cycle management (LCM) techniques considering various uncertainties can be used to predict the safe service life of fatigue sensitive structures, plan for their future inspections and support the decision making process regarding maintenance and repair actions. This paper provides a brief overview of the LCM of fatigue sensitive civil and marine structures under uncertainty. Probabilistic performance prediction, inspection scheduling and maintenance optimization for such structures are discussed

Lifetime Bridge Maintenance Strategies Based on System Reliability

This study proposes a methodology for a system reliability-based condition evaluation of existing highway bridges. The approach is illustrated for an existing steel bridge located in Colorado. USA. An optimum lifetime repair strategy based on minimum expected cost is developed. The initial optimum repair strategy is updated using both biennial visual inspections and specific non-destructive evaluation testing

Reliability, risk and lifetime distributions as performance indicators for life-cycle maintenance of deteriorating structures

Structural capacity deterioration is among the main causes of increasing failure probabilities of structural systems, thus maintenance interventions are a crucial task for their rational management. Several probabilistic approaches have been proposed during the last decades for the determination of cost-effective maintenance strategies based on selected performance indicators. However, benefits and drawbacks of each performance indicator with respect to the others should be further analyzed. The objective of this paper is to investigate probabilistic approaches based on the annual reliability index, annual risk, and lifetime distributions for life-cycle maintenance of structural systems. Maintenance schedules are obtained for representative series, parallel, and series-parallel systems considering total restoration of component resistances whenever a prescribed threshold, based on a selected performance indicator, is reached. Effects related to different structural configurations and correlation among failure modes are investigated. The superstructure of an existing bridge is used to illustrate the presented approaches

Life-cycle maintenance of deteriorating structures by multi-objective optimization involving reliability, risk, availability, hazard and cost

In recent years, several probabilistic methods for assessing the performance of structural systems have been proposed. These methods take into account uncertainties associated with material properties, structural deterioration, and increasing loads over time, among others. When aging phenomena have significant effects on the life-cycle performance of the structure, it becomes essential to perform actions to maintain or improve structural safety, in agreement with the system requirements and available funds. Various optimization methods and performance indicators have been proposed for the determination of optimal maintenance plans for simple and complex systems. The aim of this paper is twofold: (a) to assess and compare advantages and drawbacks of four different performance indicators related to multi objective optimization of maintenance schedules of deteriorating structures, and (b) to assess the cost-efficiency of the associated optimal solutions. Two annual performance indicators, annual reliability index and annual risk, and two lifetime performance indicators (i.e. availability and hazard functions) are used in conjunction with total maintenance cost for evaluating Pareto fronts associated with optimal maintenance schedules of deteriorating structures. Essential maintenance actions are considered and optimization is performed by using genetic algorithms. The approach is illustrated on an existing deteriorating bridge superstructure

Maintenance and safety of deteriorating systems: a life-cycle perspective

This paper reviews the key aspects associated with maintenance and safety of deteriorating infrastructure systems from a life-cycle perspective. The main conceptual aspects related to probabilistic optimization of maintenance and rehabilitation of structural systems are discussed. These aspects include life-cycle risk and sustainability assessment, risk-informed and utility-based decision making, and multi-objective optimization of interventions. In general, sustainability assessment is performed by quantifying economic, social, and environmental impacts associated with infrastructure management activities. This keynote paper also reviews various methods for determining optimum life-cycle maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation types and times, as well as the impact of such activities on the total life-cycle cost. The role of probabilistic performance indicators including reliability and risk, the sustainability assessment of deteriorating infrastructure systems, and risk- and utility-informed decision making are highlighted herein

Efficient adaptive importance sampling for time-dependent reliability analysis of structures

Various methods have been used by researchers to evaluate the time-dependent reliability of structures. Among them, the stochastic-process-based method is theoretically the most rigorous but also computationally the most expensive. To enable the wide application of the stochastic-process-based method in the time-dependent reliability analysis of complex problems, an efficient importance sampling method is presented. This new method, extended from an existing method for time-independent reliability analysis, offers an efficient solution for time-dependent problems of structural systems with multiple important regions. Furthermore, to enhance the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method, a number of numerical measures are proposed. The capability and efficiency of the proposed method are demonstrated through two numerical examples

Social Dimensions in Sustainability Evaluation of Deteriorating Reinforced Concrete Bridges

Structural sustainability requires that structural engineering activities should find ways to design and maintain structures that perform as required during their life-cycle considering intergenerational needs. Massive attention has been paid to the economic and environmental evaluation of structures. However, being a completely different discipline from structural engineering, the social dimensions associated with structures were rarely considered in previous studies due to the difficulty in determination and quantification, unavoidable subjectivity and controversy, as well as the lack of historical data. This paper identifies the social impacts induced by engineering activities associated with the deterioration of reinforced concrete structures, and proposes corresponding computational approaches from the structural engineering viewpoint. Utility theory is used herein to measure, normalize and combine different social attributes with consideration of the risk attitudes of decision makers. A case study is performed on a deteriorating reinforced concrete bridge to compare the social performances of different maintenance strategies based on the associated multi-attribute social utility values

Optimum maintenance strategy for deteriorating bridge structures based on lifetime functions

The highway networks of most European and North American countries are completed or close to completion. However, many of their bridges are aging, and in the United States alone a very significant part of the about 600,000 existing bridges is considered to be deficient and must be replaced, repaired or upgraded in the short term. The funds available for the maintenance of existing highway bridges are extremely limited when compared with the huge investment necessary, and must, therefore, be spent wisely. In this paper, a model based on lifetime functions for predicting the evolution in time of the reliability of deteriorating bridges under maintenance is presented. This model uses the probability of satisfactory system performance during a specified time interval as a measure of reliability and treats each bridge structure as a system composed of several components. In this manner, it is possible to predict the structural performance of deteriorating structures in a probabilistic framework. In addition, the optimum maintenance strategy is identified using as objective the minimization of the present value of the life-cycle maintenance cost. An existing bridge is analyzed using lifetime functions and its optimum maintenance strategy is found.U.S. National Science Foundation - CMS-9912525; CMS-0217290.Colorado Department of TransportationDutch Ministry of Transportation, Public Works, and Water Management

Fatigue reliability and service life prediction of aluminum naval ship details based on monitoring data

The evolution of naval vessels towards high-speed crafts subjected to severe sea conditions has promoted an increasing interest in lightweight high-strength materials. Due to its strength and weight characteristics, aluminum has been proven especially suitable as construction material for hull structures, as well as other vessel parts. However, fatigue in aluminum naval crafts needs to be effectively addressed for the proper life-cycle assessment. Structural health monitoring (SHM) systems constitute effective tools for measuring the structural response and assessing the structural performance under actual operational conditions. In this paper, an approach for using SHM information in the fatigue reliability analysis and service life prediction of aluminum naval vessels is presented. The accumulated fatigue damage and the fatigue reliability are quantified based on SHM data acquired under different operational conditions, specified by the ship speeds, sea states, and heading angles. Additionally, an approach for estimating the reliability-based fatigue life under a given operational profile is presented. Seakeeping trial data of an aluminium high-speed naval vessel are used to illustrate the proposed approach