Panel 5
Title: Innovation on the Quality Control of bridges
Date: Tuesday, 26th March 2019 – 08:30 – 10:00
Abstract: The transport system represents a fundamental factor for the economic and social development, as it allows the quick, safe and easy exchange of passengers and freight. For the most part, this mobility is sustained by the network of roads and highways providing high level of service and flexibility. Road bridges are key elements in terms of safety and functionality for the whole infrastructure. The ageing and deterioration of these components exacerbated by climate change from one hand and the increasing traffic intensities and loads from the other hand, make them the bottlenecks of the transportation infrastructure. Decision making about replacing or repairing, when and how to repair each individual structure, is a common and difficult management issue for asset managers. To maintain a high quality of service, there is a significant need for Quality Control procedures that allow road administrations to better manage their infrastructure stock. Performance related to the effects of climate change and extreme events in general must be carefully accounted for in order to support decision policies oriented toward a sustainable, redundant, robust and resilient approach to bridge management.
Innovation in the field of quality control of bridges can follow different paths. One of, is the definition of indicators able to describe the system performance with respect to current and future actions related not only to the structural function itself but to the entire system considering also societal, environmental and economic issues. Indicators must be able to translate data collected on the system into information useful for decision making. Efficiency in the performance assessment is therefore another important aspect of innovation mainly related to the availability of technologies. The last path to innovation follows the definition of advanced forecasting models about the future structural performance, based on the information related to the current conditions. These topics will be discussed in the panel by experts in the different sectors.
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Moderator Maria Limongelli Politecnico di Milano Italy |
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Rapporteur André Orcesi IFSTTAR France |
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Helena Gervásio University of Coimbra Portugal |
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Guido De Roeck KU Leuven Belgium |
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Michael Faber Technical University of Denmark (DTU) Denmark |
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Boulent Imam University of Surrey United Kingdom |
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Markus Hoffman Technical University of Vienna Austria |
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Ignacio Piñero Tecnalia Spain |