Performance based maintenance scheduling for bridges

This paper presents an assessment of four alternative deterioration models examined under a research and development program aimed at analyzing ways to prevent deterioration under the combined effects of repeated vehicle loading and environmental factors. This new research renounces the Markov chain model, which is the most widely used model in the literature for this problem. The Markov chain model produces results that are counter intuitive and are not in agreement with expectations and results from theoretical modeling. Other models were examined and found to be in better agreement with expectations and results from theoretical modeling. The paper assesses theoretical models, such as Weibull, against VicRoads bridge inspection data from Level 2 bridge inspection collected over a number of years. It is essential that data alone be not used in determining the model selection, but also the prior engineering knowledge about the bridge structures is incorporated in the model selection. The paper demonstrates how it was done in this case and illustrates an alternative to the Markov chain for bridge deterioration modelin