37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 820A BRIDGE INSPECTION SYSTEM WITH INTELLIGENTASSISTANCEMontserrat Sanchez and LLuis.GilDepartment of Strength of Materials and Enginnering EstructuresUniversitat Politécnica de Catalunyae-mail: montserrat.sanchez@upc.eduKeywords: bridge inspection, expert system, decision makingAbstractGovernments and private bridge managers are currently emphasising bridge maintenance andseeking to expand the life of existing bridges through sustainability. Bridge management is acomplex task in which costs, service quality, and safety must be balanced. Good decisionmakingdepends on good inspection data. Inspectors check for defects and propose repairs. Inextreme cases, the bridge must be demolished. At the Technical University of Catalonia(UPC) we have developed a web-based system for decision-making in bridge management.Our system provides a bridge inventory to facilitate organization of data, inspections andprocesses, and offers an expert knowledge database for diagnosing pathologies, performinginterventions, and making budget estimates. Maintenance planning can be applied to a singlebridge or applied globally to a group of bridges. The System enables more reliable, moreefficient and safer maintenance and restoration of bridges. These capabilities were integratedusing web-based technology, which is highly amenable to bridge management, as it allowsmulti-user access in real time during inspection. The System was tested by the companyATISAE in routine inspections of bridges in Spain. It should prove valuable to bridgemanagers, inspectors and designers.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 285