Applied and research based performance indicator database for highway bridges across Europe

Abstract

Structural codes provide several practical principles and application rules such as the use of protective systems for material exposed in aggressive environment, the construction detailing aimed at avoiding the initiation of degradation, the maintenance actions to be regularly performed. Each construction, during its life cycle, will face with deterioration depending on several factors such as the environmental condition, the natural aging, the quality of the material, the execution of works and the planned maintenance. Therefore, several design procedures based on the prediction of the deterioration that will likely act on the structure will be developed in the framework of the international research. In addition, performance indicators for the present and future structural conditions on deterministic and probabilistic level will be defined and determined. It is extremely important to analyse such indicators in terms of used assessment frameworks, and in terms of the quantification procedure itself.