engleski

Bridge Management Systems

Poor in-service performance and condition of existing bridges in Croatia led to launching of a comprehensive project aimed at development of a new Croatian bridge management system. Each step in the process is carefully negotiated between the bridge owners, practising engineers and representatives of the scientific community to ensure the functionality and simplicity of the end product. The first version of the bridge management system puts an emphasis on the objectiveness of the inspection results. Condition assessment algorithm is then applied to the inspection findings to provide the priority ranking of maintenance activities. Further research is needed to introduce deterioration prediction models in the bridge management system. Croatia is a land of great diversity with continental climate in the inland and hot mediterranean climate and distinctive bora winds along the coast. Therefore in terms of deepening our understanding of physical deterioration processes in these unique environmental conditions past experience and monitoring the performance of existing bridge strucutres must be taken into account. Additionally, it is necessary to develop and implement adequate procedures for load-carrying capacity assessment. The ultimate objective in development and implementation of the bridge management system in Croatia is to integrate management of all road structures (bridges, pavements, earthworks, retaining walls, tunnels, etc.) into a route management system. This issue will be of greatest importance as maitnenance costs start to prevail over the investments in new construction in Croatia. Only an integrated management system of all assets can provide relevant information for adequate budgetary programming of a road authority.

bridge; maintenance; inspection; assessment; prioritisation; bridge management system

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