Sustainability assessment of road bridges

Sustainability assessment for maintenance and retrofitting of road bridges

In contrast to building structures, the sustainability of structures in the area of road infrastructure has not yet been recorded as a rule, nor are there any uniform evaluation systems for assessing it. In the research project, systems based on profiles were developed, which can be used to compare and assess planned structure variants with regard to their sustainability with the aid of a point or monetary evaluation.

The aim of the research project is to develop a suitable planning tool that can be used to analyze and compare the sustainability of different maintenance and rehabilitation concepts for road bridges.

For this purpose, the existing profiles for the new construction of road bridges, open sections and tunnels will be analyzed and reviewed with regard to their relevance for maintenance and retrofitting measures. Then, on the basis of this analysis, the existing criteria catalogs will be adapted with regard to the parameters relevant to maintenance and upgrading measures, i.e. expanded, shortened or modified as necessary. This will be based on the modular system of profiles that has already been introduced. The structure of the sustainability assessment is based on the four pillars of ecological quality, economic quality, socio-cultural quality and functional and technical quality.