Life Quality Method versus Cost-Benefit Analysis for short-span slab bridges

摘要

Structural reliability analysis has been proposed for the assessment of existing structures by various researchers. A theoretical value for the probability of failure can be calculated using commercial software packages. However there is still no generally agreed acceptance criterion. A recently developed method based on the Life Quality Index has been suggested to determine the required safety level. In this paper determination of the acceptable failure probability using the Life Quality Method is compared to that using Cost-Benefit Analysis. Three short-span bridges were assessed using both criteria to find the minimum acceptable design parameters and thus the minimum acceptable failure probability. The sensitivity of the results to variations in parameters such as remaining service life, discount rate, corrosion rate and user costs due to traffic disruption was studied.