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1
Graduate Research Assistant. E-mail: dkhatami@iastate.edu
2
Assistant Professor (corresponding author). E-mail: shafei@iastate.edu
Dept. of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering,
Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA 50011.
Abstract
Reinforced concrete (RC) structures are exposed to a variety of environmental
stressors that may initiate the deterioration of structures. The system deterioration,
however, must be considered as a stochastic process since the progress of
deterioration varies widely with several uncertain factors, which are generally not
captured by available data. Considering that maintenance strategies are planned based
on the estimates of the extent of structural deterioration, a systematic effort is needed
to incorporate various sources of uncertainty in predictive models and decision-
making algorithms. To this end, the current study utilizes Weibull distribution to
investigate the deterioration of RC bridges. In the developed models, a set of
condition states is used to describe the level of structural degradation characterized by
different performance rates, ranging from perfect functioning to complete failure.
Furthermore, a range of maintenance actions are examined depending on the expected
damage state. By taking into account the factor of cost, the developed probabilistic
framework directly contributes to improve the current maintenance policies through
the identification of the most optimized preventive or corrective actions while the
safety of the structure is ensured.
Introduction
Presence of aggressive ions, such as chloride and carbon dioxide, adversely affects
the performance of bridges during their life cycle. Therefore, in order to prevent
structural failure and subsequent losses, a number of studies have been performed to
model the deterioration process and predict the structural condition of bridges in the
future. The deterioration process is generally categorized into two groups of
deterministic and stochastic models. The first group uses simple statistical
calculations to obtain a relationship between factors affecting the bridge deterioration
and condition state (CS) (e.g., Madanat and Ibrahim 1995; Yanev 1998). However, it
is known that the inherent stochastic nature of the deterioration process in civil
infrastructure components cannot be captured with deterministic methods. Therefore,
stochastic models are commonly used to consider the uncertainties that contribute to
predict the deterioration process. Markov chain is one of the stochastic processes used
in bridge management systems for predicting the future condition of deteriorating
structures (Thompson et al. 2000; Fu and Devaraj 2008; Bu et al. 2014; Wellalage et
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al. 2015). Although deterioration is a continuous and gradual process, discrete states
are commonly used to represent the progress of deterioration during inspection
intervals (Morcous and Akhnoukh 2006). For this purpose, the transition probability
between condition states can be estimated through different methods, such as
percentage prediction method and hazard function. Even though the accuracy of
Markovian models can be enhanced by using a proper method to calculate the
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transition matrix, such models have certain limitations mainly due to the fact that the
future condition is assumed to be only dependent on the present condition and not on
the past condition. In Markov models, it is assumed that the sojourn time, which is the
time of stay in a particular condition state, follows an exponential distribution. In
other words, the probability of transition from the current state to a worse one does
not depend on how long the bridge has been in the current state. In order to relax this
limitation, some researchers used Weibull distribution to model the time to
deterioration (Mishalani and Madanat 2002; Kobayashi et al. 2010). According to
DeLisle et al. (2004) and Agrawal et al. (2010), Weibull distribution generally
provides the best fit for infrastructure deterioration data. The present paper simulates
the penetration of chloride using finite difference method. Based on simulation
results, the sojourn times are extracted and fitted by a Weibull distribution to generate
a deterioration model to predict the future condition of a set of case-study bridges. To
investigate how the uncertainty of corrosion parameters affect the results, a sensitivity
analysis is performed as well.
Determination of condition state
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Transition probabilities
Three scenarios are defined to represent different exposure conditions. For this
purpose, three levels of surface chloride content are introduced, including low
exposure (mean of 2.0 kg/m3 and coefficient of variation (CV) of 0.25), medium
exposure (mean of 3.5 kg/m3 and CV of 0.14), and high exposure (mean of 5.0 kg/m3
and CV of 0.1). The assumed exposure conditions are consistent with those reported
by Val (2004) and Shafei and Alipour (2015a,b). The surface chloride content is
generated from a lognormal distribution with the listed mean and CV. A normal
distribution with the mean of 5.0 cm and CV of 0.1 is identified for concrete cover
depth. The chloride content at rebar depth is estimated using finite difference method
for each set of samples. As time passes, the chloride ions penetrate into the concrete
and the chloride content increases at rebar depth (Shafei et al., 2012). The time
duration until reaching the chloride threshold of condition state 1 is obtained from
simulations. Similarly, the time duration spent in each condition state is extracted and
corresponding histograms are generated (Khatami and Shafei 2015). A Weibull
distribution is, then, fitted to the data. The Weibull distribution parameters are
obtained by fitting the histograms for different condition states. By knowing Weibull
parameters, the probability of remaining in a specific condition state for a certain
period of time is calculated. The survival function (Eq. 1) shows the probability of
remaining in a specific condition state.
( )= ( / )
> 0, > 0, > 0 = 1,2, … ,5 (1)
where a and b are Weibull parameters and t is time. Figure 1 shows the probabilities
of remaining in a condition state as a function of time. It is clear that as the surface
chloride increases, the structural condition of the case-study bridges degrade. The
information on the bridges under consideration can be found in Alipour et al. (2011
and 2013). The bridges located in an aggressive environment with a higher
concentration of chloride ions degrade sooner and experience a worse condition in the
absence of maintenance and repair actions. Moreover, the probability of remaining in
a good condition state decreases as time passes. This is because of the accumulation
of chloride ions at rebar depth.
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Probability of remaining in CS i
Probability of remaining in CS i
0.95 0.95
0.90 0.90
0.85 0.85
0.80 0.80
0.75 0.75
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0.70 0.70
0.65 i= 1 i= 1
0.65
i= 2 i= 2
0.60 i= 3 0.60 i= 3
i= 4 i= 4
0.55 0.55
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (year) Time (year)
Mean 5 kg/m3
1.00
Probability of remaining in CS i
0.95
0.90
0.85
0.80
0.75
0.70
i= 1
0.65 i= 2
0.60 i= 3
i= 4
0.55
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (year)
Figure 1. Transition probabilities for different surface chloride concentrations
(with the means of 2.0, 3.5, and 5.0 kg/m3) as a function of time.
Evaluation of influential factors
In order to study the impact of uncertainty of simulation parameters, such as cover
depth, diffusion coefficient, and critical chloride, on the transition probabilities, a
sensitivity analysis is performed. Therefore, the samples of parameters randomly
generated are used to verify the variation of predictions. Figures 2 through 4 show the
sensitivity results.
Mean Surface Cl 3.5 kg/m3
1.00
0.90
Probability of remaining in CS i
0.80
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20 Mean d = 3 cm
0.10 Mean d = 5 cm
Mean d = 8 cm
0.00
1 2 3 4
Condition state (CS)
Figure 2. Effect of cover depth on the main diagonal elements of transition matrices
© ASCE
In Figure 2, cover depths (d) are generated from normal distribution with the means
equal to 3.0, 5.0 and 8.0 cm. It can be observed from the figure that as the concrete
cover increases, bridges will mostly remain in a good condition state, i.e. CS 1 and 2.
Furthermore, cover depths of 5.0 and 8.0 cm result in similar response in CS 1, 2 and
3, but there is 20% difference in CS 4. On the other hand, the cover depth of 2.0 cm
provides different probabilities in CS 1, 2 and 3. Therefore, it is evident that cover
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depth is a crucial parameter for determining transition probabilities. Among all the
cover depths, d = 3.0 cm has shown the largest variation.
Figure 3 demonstrates the impact of chloride diffusion coefficient on the results. This
includes a set of three DCl generated with a uniform distribution: U(1.0,4.0),
U(1.5,4.5) and U(2.0,5.0) ×10-12 m2/sec. It is shown in this figure that all the DCl
values result in similar trends. CS 2 has the highest difference between probabilities,
which is in the range of 6%. The trend represents that changing the mean of diffusion
coefficient from 2.5×10-12 to 3.5×10-12 m2/sec does not have a significant effect on the
results.
Mean Surface Cl 3.5 kg/m3
1.00
0.98
0.96
Probability of remaining in CS i
0.94
0.92
0.90
0.88
0.86
0.84
Dcl1
0.82 Dcl2
Dcl3
0.80
1 2 3 4
Condition State (CS)
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Probability of remaining in CS i
0.95
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0.90
0.85
0.80 Critical Cl 1
Critical Cl 2
Critical Cl 3
0.75
1 2 3 4
CS
Figure 4. Effect of critical chloride on the main diagonal elements of transition matrices
LCC = + + + + + (2)
© ASCE
The future maintenance expenditure is calculated based on the base year price using a
discount factor, α, that takes into account the time value of the money. This factor is
defined in terms of interest rate i as:
= (1 + ) (3)
In practice, the discount rate is typically in the range of 2 to 8% depending on the
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economic situation and prospect. A high discount rate is suitable for short service
time while a low discount rate favors longer service time. In the current study, 3.5%
is considered as the discount rate. The inspection cost is defined as a portion of
construction cost (here 0.5%). Therefore, the total inspection cost will be obtained
from the summation of the costs of all the inspections (considering each inspection
cost is ) performed during the life cycle of the structure (Eq. 4).
=∑ ( ∆ ) (4)
As for the maintenance cost, some items, such as grinding existing concrete,
removing concrete surface, preparing concrete bridge surface, treating bridge deck,
treating cracks, and cleaning expansion joint, are selected from Caltrans Cost Data
(2013). Similar to inspection cost, the total maintenance cost is calculated through Eq.
5, in which is the cost of maintenance activity, which can be calculated as the
summation of individual maintenance costs (Eq. 5).
=∑ ( ∆ ) (5)
In addition to direct maintenance cost, the user cost associated with the temporary
closure of bridge should be considered. The indirect maintenance cost consists of
maintenance duration (tm), usage disruption index (bm), and unit user cost (u).
=∑ ( ∆ ) (6)
In this formula, disruption index shows the closure portion of the bridge (e.g., if one
lane of a four-lane bridge is closed, would be 0.25). The unit user cost depends on
the type and volume of crossing traffic, availability of convenient alternative routes as
well as travel delays and accidents. In the present paper, it is assumed that for the
maintenance activity, a quarter of the bridge is closed at each period of time for one
week or more. If the bridge has a worse condition state, it is necessary to spend more
time to repair it. The average hourly user cost is assumed equal to $8.7 per vehicle.
The annual traffic is assumed to be 100,000 h vehicle per year.
The failure cost of a bridge is defined as following:
=∑ ( ∆ ) (7)
where is the repair cost due to the service failure, which is considered equal to
20% of construction cost. In Eq. 7, shows the probability of failure during each
time interval of the bridge life cycle. The concept of indirect failure cost is similar to
indirect maintenance cost and can be calculated based on Eq. 8.
=∑ ( ∆ ) (8)
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where and are the duration of repair activities after failure and usage disruption
parameter due to service failure, respectively. It is assumed that during repair, half of
the bridge will be closed to the traffic for one month (Alipour et al. 2013). The
average costs estimated for short, medium, and long-span bridges are summarized in
Table 2. The probability of failure in and are extracted from the transition
probabilities obtained in the previous section.
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After estimating how the case-study bridges are expected to perform in the future, an
optimized maintenance strategy should be prepared to ensure the serviceability of
structures with minimum cost and loss. To determine the most appropriate
maintenance actions, three different maintenance actions are examined. The main
assumption is that there are no budget limitations to maintain certain condition states.
Table 3 shows more detailed information about each of the actions.
Table 3. List of condition-based maintenance actions
Action Description
1 Upgrade the condition of the structure one state every 5 years
2 Upgrade the structure to CS 1 every 20 years
3 Upgrade the condition of the structure to CS 2 every 10 years
Using the listed actions, the operational costs for three scenarios introduced for the
surface chloride of 2.0, 3.5, and 5.0 kg/m3 are calculated (Figure 5). It can be
understood from the figure that the cost of action one and two are approximately the
same, while action one keeps the structure in an acceptable CS but the structure under
maintenance action two is exposed to more risk. Both of these actions provide the
cost efficient maintenance strategies. Among all the scenarios, the operational cost of
5.0 kg/m3 surface chloride is higher than 2.0 and 3.5 kg/m3, which can be justified as
higher surface chloride leads to harsher deterioration and more extensive
maintenance/repair actions. Moreover, the relative cost of this scenario is about 2 to
5% higher than the average with a large variation of 6%. Meanwhile, the cost of
scenario with 2.0 kg/m3 of surface chloride is approximately 2 to 6% lower than
average and it is almost equal for three actions (0.2% variation). This results show
that the environments with higher concentration of chloride are more sensitive to
maintenance actions.
© ASCE
$520,000
$510,000
$500,000
$490,000
Operational cost
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$480,000
$470,000
$460,000
Acknowledgement
This manuscript is based on the work supported by Midwest Transportation Center
(MTC). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this manuscript are
those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of MTC.
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