A New Monitoring System for Repair and Maintenance Planning of Masonry and Concrete Bridges. The I-E Method.

The recent collapse on 14/08/2008 of the Morandi bridge in Genoa highlighted the need for continuous monitoring and restoration of strategic works, with reference also to the new DM 2018, to European and world standards. This paper presents a new monitoring system for maintenance planning of highway bridges. The system includes functions for maintenance priorities for action in the roads. The highway system in Europe and North America countries presents existing bridges which are considered to be deficient and must be repaired or upgraded in the time. The funds available for the maintenance of existing bridges are extremely limited when compared with the huge investment necessary, and must, therefore, be spent wisely. The monitoring of existing bridges is important to define the surgical priority but especially to define the best correct structural details for the design. The natural erosion of the security’s infrastructures is becoming important for the maintenance cost of the bridge and is necessary a code to define the correct monitoring. The inspection permits to define the common defects, but is important to define a method to identify localized defects and eventually any indication of failure by collapse. A new system of visual inspections, the I-E method, is here presented to define the security level of the infrastructures and to determine a better design too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]