Maintenance planning for precast prestressed bridges’ girders using reliability techniques

الملخص EN

Authorities in Egypt are continuously trying to solve the evergrowing traffic problem in Cairo.

One of the main solutions is solving interchanges and crossings by constructing bridges.

The need for fast project completion made authorities approve the precast prestressed girders as the dominant structural system for new bridges.

Building a bridge is an important investment decision that requires a large equity to accomplish.

Preserving bridges performance and extending their life time not only assure maximum revenue for the initial capital, but also eliminates the risk of traffic rerouting for emergency repairs or even disasterous failures.

In Egypt, researchers efforts towards establishing a complete bridges management system are continuously faced by the absence of complete database, sufficient budgets, inspection teams or a well organized performance monitoring system.

Bridges are in continuous process of deterioration with many bridges beyond their life expectance.

Recently, Reliability-based design codes, such as the american AASHTO LRFD, are developed by calculating load and resistance factors that consistently achieve targeted reliability.

Managerial applications of this concept is introduced by calculating the reliaiblity index of the precast beams for shear and moment modes, setting a target reliability for its capacity and analysing the performance profiles complete with the required preventive maintenances timing and effect.

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new feasable managerial approach that does not require extra resources, and includes complete reliability based maintenance plan for preserving new bridges in Egypt.

This is finally demonstrated by a case study for saft el-laban new bridge.