Study of time- dependent corrosion influences on the bridge deck resistance

Bridges are the most significant components of the transport infrastructure from the viewpoint of safety, durability and serviceability and also from the economic aspects. Therefore, it is necessary to pay enhanced attention to their design and exploitation to fulfill required function during the bridge lifetime. Because of acting aggressive environment the resistance can be changed during the structures service time. The effort was focused on compression orthotropic deck creating the upper flanges of bridges with ballast beds. The degradation as well as material and geometric characteristics is stochastic in their nature, so the probabilistic approach to the structural reliability assessment is necessary to use. The probabilistic model was developed in ANSYS software environment using software support module PDS. Random variables were described by means of parameters of probability density distribution according to data determined experimentally. The parametric study was realized to obtain a dependence of the deck resistance on the variable structural and geometrical characteristics, as well as dependence on the environmental action in the form of corrosion. The time variable loss of deck resistance was computed based on some corrosion models. (c) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and review under responsibility of University of Zilina, FCE, Slovakia.