Bridge Rehabilitation

This article describes a financial model to identify the tangible and intangible costs and benefits associated with externally bonded fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement of bridges. It is applied to the analysis of bridge G270 located on Route 32 in Iron County, Missouri, but also applies an approach that can be used with other bridges and structures. This research model represents an approach to address major issues in order to assist in the decision whether or not to rehabilitate specific bridges. Many of these issues are intangible, in that they do not lend themselves to exact or certain measurement. However, they can be analyzed and estimated so that the underlying assumptions are explicitly stated and better understood. This article includes a discussion of the approach that was selected for this model, a description of the methods used to estimate the costs and benefits, and the results and conclusions based on these estimates. Approach The objective of this study is to develop methods and tools that clarify the costs and benefits of rehabilitating bridges in order to decide whether to treat specific bridges and develop an effective rehabilitation policy. Many of the impacts of this decision are intangible, in that they do not len