Life-cycle Management of Civil Infrastructure Considering Risk and Sustainability

Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA

Investigators

Abstract

Civil infrastructure systems play a crucial role in supporting economic and social welfare of communities. However, in the U.S., these systems are under continuous aging and deterioration hindering their ability to properly function. Changing Climate may exacerbate this functionality problem. For the proper performance assessment of structural systems during their life-cycle, it is necessary to take into account not only functionality but also economic, social and environmental indicators. Therefore, formulating methodologies to quantify the effects of changing climate on infrastructure vulnerability and to identify optimal life-cycle management strategies for civil infrastructure considering risk and sustainability is of paramount importance. This project pursues fundamental research to provide needed knowledge for the development of an integrated risk and sustainability informed decision making framework for optimum life-cycle management of civil infrastructure systems. Results from this research will benefit the U.S. economy and society. This research involves several disciplines including structural reliability and risk, bridge engineering, life-cycle engineering, optimization, and decision theory. The multi-disciplinary approach will help broaden participation of underrepresented groups in research. Most of the previous research on life-cycle management of civil infrastructure systems focused on formulating methodologies to enable understanding the effects of changing climate on the performance of these systems. Additionally, no clear integration of risk and sustainability metrics in the management of deteriorating infrastructure has been provided. This research is to create a risk and sustainability based decision making framework capable of optimizing life-cycle management of civil infrastructure systems. The outputs of this framework are the risk and sustainability based performance profiles and the optimized life-cycle intervention strategies taking into account conflicting budgetary and safety constraints. The developed risk and sustainability based life-cycle management framework will facilitate the real-world implementation of life-cycle management methodologies.