Coupled Safety Assessment of Cable Stay Bridges

The life of the large stock of concrete bridges that still exist throughout the world must be extended, while at the same time ensuring that safety is not compromised for economic reason. In fact, environmental damage and fatigue life estimation of historical bridges represent a coupled structural issue for managing cost-effective decisions regarding rehabilitation or replacement of existing infrastructure, hence there is a need to estimate how long these structures could remain in service. In this paper, a coupled environmental and fatigue assessment of a representative cable stay bridge, is analyzed and assessed. Based on the analytical study, parametrical results on the lifespan of the bridge have been presented.