Risk-based performance evaluation for concrete bridge deck repair

Repair of concrete decks has a significant impact on the total costs of a bridge repair and rehabilitation project. Therefore, it is important to establish a rational procedure and criteria for evaluating deck performance. This paper compares the evaluation procedures and performance criteria in the 2014 Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code with those in the Manual for Bridge Evaluation published by AASHTO in 2011. The fundamental differences between bridge design and evaluation have been identified, followed by a proposed evaluation procedure, where the risks related to the time-dependent uncertainties associated with concrete deterioration and the epistemic uncertainties in measurement and testing methods, including spatial variations, are considered. The proposed procedure is calibrated using a similar procedure for new structure design. More importantly, this paper emphasizes that new bridge design deals with group characteristics of future structures, while bridge evaluation addresses the status of individual elements in existing structures.