Optimal maintenance for RC decks of bridge network based upon life cycle cost
Furuta Hitoshi; Kanamori Atsushi; Dogaki Masahiro
Abstract:In this paper, an attempt is made to develop a decision supporting system for the maintenance program of Reinforced Concrete (RC) decks of highway bridges. Emphasis is placed on how to obtain an appropriate order of repair for the existing RC decks by considering the characteristics of highway network and the concept of life cycle cost. Namely, in order to account for the importance of each bridge and the adequate resource allocation, the influence of repair works on the surrounding areas and various practical technical and economical conditions for their repair are considered. Genetic Algorithm (GA) is employed here to find a practical and rational solution for the maintenance problem, because GA has such an advantage that it can provide us with useful solutions for large and complex combinatorial and scheduling problems with discontinuous or vague objective functions. Moreover, fuzzy reasoning is applied to express the objective functions in a flexible manner such as 'If Then' rules. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the system developed here. Key Words:maintenance, optimal repairing, reinforced concrete decks of highway bridge, highway network, life cycle cost, genetic algorithm, fuzzy reasoning