The impact of a PEER funded research project "Bridge Functionality Instead of Component Damage as PBEE Metric" is highlighted below. The project Principal Investigators (PIs) are Michael H. Scott, Professor of Structural Engineering, Oregon State University and Kevin R. Mackie, Professor of Structural Engineering, University of Central Florida.
Download the Research Project Highlight which includes the abstract. (PDF)
Research Impact:
A considerable body of knowledge has been generated in the last 15 years on bridge component-level limit states and their corresponding fragilities. Focus on component damage limit states, particularly those for columns, has enabled a better relationship between experimental testing on traditional cast-in-place and new column systems, numerical modeling and tools for predicting observed behaviors, and bridge- and network-level modeling to produce bridge-specific fragilities and network risk assessment. However, a major disconnect remains in that bridge and network decisions are ideally based on functionality, and there is little and often unknown correlation between column damage limit states and bridge functionality.
In addition, work performed on extending decision variables (DVs) to economic losses has not always been applied to new materials and structural systems due to the difficulties in obtaining repair schematics and cost estimations. At the transportation network level, the resulting direct costs associated with bridge repair do not drive a substantial portion of the total economic losses due to loss of function. Transitioning industry and research beyond the 3 Ds (death, dollars, and downtime) towards resilience requires a quantifiable measure of functionality. In addition, it should be recognized that existing network risk assessment software already utilize functionality versus time curves to simulate costs for a region. Therefore, the proposed work will give a more direct representation of this functionality loss, potentially eliminating the DM variable introduced in the early years of PEER.
