Comparing conventional and innovative bridge deck options: Alife cycle engineering and costing approach

摘要

Engineering design is a complex process facili facilitated by experience and past practice.rnDesign methods, concrete and surface options, reinforcement materials, and geometry,rncombine to permit hundreds – if not thousands – of possible bridge deck alternatives. Givenrnsuch a staggering list of possible options, a traditional, stepwise, deterministic life cycle costingrn(LCC) approach inevitably bogs down in its search for optimality. Moreover, the resultsrnreached fail to inform decision-makers of the risks surrounding each deck alternative and may,rntherefore, limit confidence in any recommendations emerging through the LCC analysis. Thernauthors of this paper, propose an iterative life cycle engineering and costing (LCE&C) approachrnto gradually hone a list of potential deck design alternatives. Embracing uncertainty in an explicitrnway, the results derived and reported herein provide decision-makers with comparable,rnstochastic life cycle cost estimates.