Life-cycle cost management of concrete bridges

Increasing stocks of public infrastructure and the serious deterioration of infrastructure systems in many countries present great financial, safety, technical and operational challenges to government organisations responsible for their development and management. This paper proposes a performance-based life-cycle cost management model for reinforced concrete bridge structures with regard to chloride-induced reinforcement corrosion. The model comprises four aspects: a chloride-induced corrosion deterioration model; performance-based management of concrete structures; the cost-effectiveness of management actions measured by the performance improvement per unit of money spent; a life-cycle cost model, which includes construction cost, inspection cost, maintenance cost, repair cost and failure cost. Two examples of chloride-induced reinforcement corrosion are provided to demonstrate the use of the proposed performance-based management strategy.