Long Term Evaluation of the Structural Reliability of an Existing Concrete Prestressed Bridge

Reliability is an important factor to determine how safe is a structure. The aim of this study is to use the concept of reliability in order to manage the maintenance and to plan the interventions that could be necessary. The first part includes the calibration of the model, verifying the obtained results. The second part provides a 100-samples nonlinear analysis, considering the statistically important random variables. Each sample is generated considering the mean and standard deviation values of each random variable, using the Hypercube Latin method to couple them. The output is the load factor probability distribution. Using an overload probabilistic curve, the reliability index is computed, according to the Monte Carlo method. The third part illustrates the corrosion effect calculation, using FIB Bulletin 34 guidelines. Once determined the corroded area and the corrosion depth during time, the reliability index is computed, using different time values. The trend of reliability index during time is obtained in relationship with variation of the standard deviation and the load factor values.