REVIEW ON STRUCTURAL STRENGTH ASSESSMENT OF EXISTING BRIDGES

The present study provides a critical overview of the state-ofthe-art existing reliability assessment of reinforced concrete bridges. The techniques were classified broadly as Inspection and maintenance, Assessment of condition, posting of bridges, rating of existing bridges, load testing and structural health monitoring. The study revealed various techniques and helpful information that could be employed for superior forecasting of the effective service life of degrading RC bridges as well as in predicting the optimum time for periodic inspection and creating maintenance strategies for continued service life of the bridges. This structural assessment guideline can be applied to all kind of existing bridge structures for all type of structural material (concrete, steel, timber, masonry, composite material). Experience based quantitative assessment of deterioration effects and other damage through visual inspection is carried out where as Serviceability based quantitative assessment of safety and reliability is carried out using refined model-based monitoring of static and dynamic test data.