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Publication Details

Title

LIFETIME ANALYSIS OF HIGHWAY COMPOSITE BRIDGE

Authors

Abstract

Highway bridges are important assets in every infrastructure network. The cost of construction and operation of highway bridges are key issues for bridge engineers. However, in the near future the design of bridges and other infrastructures will require more than compiling with safety requirements according to safety standards and economic constraints. The multidimensional perspective of sustainability requires the combination of current design criteria with other important aspects such as society and environment, usually considering a life cycle approach.
In this work, a framework for an integrated life cycle design of bridges is presented. Specific indicators characterising several aspects of sustainability in bridge design are chosen: (i) environmental impacts, (ii) initial and future costs, and (iii) impacts on users. These indicators are quantified over the complete life cycle of the bridge in a probabilistic based approach. Furthermore, the purpose of this paper is to apply the proposed methodology to a steel-composite highway bridge in order to enhance the unique features of this kind of structures in the pursuit of a sustainable construction system.

References

Ecoinvent Centre (2004), Ecoinvent data v1.3. Final reports ecoinvent 2000 No. 1-15. Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories. Dübendorf. Retrived from: www.ecoinvent.ch.
Gervásio, H. and Simões da Silva, L. (2008), A probabilistic life cycle analysis of a steel-composite bridge, in Ofner, R., Beg, D., Fink, O., Greiner, R. And Unterweger, H. (eds.), Eurosteel 2008 – 5th European Conference on Steel and Composite Structures - Research - Eurocodes - Practice, ECCS, Belgium, pp 1263-1278.
Guinée, J., Gorrée, M., Heijungs, R., Huppes, G., Kleijn, R., de Koning, A., van Oers, L., Sleeswijk, A., .Suh, S. and Udo de Haes, H. (2001), Life Cycle Assessment: An operational guide to the ISO standards - Part 2b – Operational Annex. Centre of Environmental Science (CML), Leiden University, The Netherlands.
IISI (2002), World Steel Life Cycle Inventory. Methodology report 1999/2000. Committee on environmental affairs. Brussels.
ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 (2006). Environmental management – life cycle assessment. International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland.
SimaPro 7 (2008), Software and database manual, PRé Consultants, Amersfoort, The Netherlands.

Files

A371-SSCS2010-HG_v4.pdf

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