National Center for Wood Transportation Structures

Strength and durability of reinforced concrete (RC) bridges are adversely affected by the deterioration of their structural members. When investigating bridges in need of maintenance and repair, deterioration caused by corrosion of steel rebars is commonly found as one of the primary sources of structural degradation, which can eventually result in the service failure of the entire bridge under normal or extreme loading conditions. To ensure the safety of bridges, while reducing direct and indirect costs, an accurate estimate of the extent of reinforcement section loss has a central importance for a wide spectrum of engineers and decision-making authorities. Such an estimate scan be achieved through a systematic effort that benefits from the wealth of available predictive models calibrated with region-specific data and then validated through appropriate field investigations. This directly contributes to improving the predictions made for the remaining structural capacity of bridge elements and subsequently planning protective and/or corrective actions tailored to maintain the bridges in a desired condition state.