Improving inspection practice and developing structural importance factors for concrete bridges

Condition assessment is an essential step in bridge management. It provides the datum from which bridge management decisions are developed. Bridge condition data is extracted during inspection, which involves the use of techniques to assess the condition of the bridge elements and the extent of defects. This paper reviews published bridge inspection guidelines and develops recommendations to improve the efficiency of the inspection process. The purpose of these recommendations is to enable bridge inspectors to identify structurally deficient elements in order to include these deficiencies in the inspection report. This research develops a methodology based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process to capture the expert's judgment regarding the criticality of the different bridge elements. The proposed methodology evaluates structural importance factor for each bridge element in a systematic and robust manner.