Reliability updating of existing bridges based on proof loading
Author
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2021
Submitted on
2021-09-10
Pages
82
Abstract
This masters thesis investigates how proof loading could be used to reassess the reliability level of existing bridges. When the resistance of the bridge is greater than the applied proof load, the bridge is considered to be safe and the test successful. The first part of this thesis presents modern state-of-the-art assessments of previous work done by different researchers. This is to give an overview of the effort done to see how, when using reliability analysis, the bridges can be safely designed so as to utilise their maximum capacity. The stochastic model is established in Chapter 3, with which the reliability analysis is carried out for the generic limit state equation. The results are presented for EN 1990 standard CC2 and CC3 consequence classes. Based on the sensitivity measures it was possible to determine which stochastic variables could be updated in order to update the reliability level of existing bridge. Bayesian decision theory, introduced in Chapter 4, is used to update the reliability level of existing concrete bridge based on proof loading. The updated failure probabilities and corresponding reliability indices indicated which proof load level is required to obtain the sufficient reliability level of structure. Future aspects were mentioned in Conclusion.
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