PSI - Issue 62

Andrea Meoni et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 62 (2024) 73–80 Meoni et al/ Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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Fig. 1. Flowchart of the proposed approach for informed bridge management in BIM environments.

3. Methodology 3.1. Description of the case study bridge

The case study bridge, shown in Fig. 1(a) and located on the central Italy road network, consists of a ten-span post-tensioned box girder constructed in 1984 by using the balanced cantilever method. The structure has a length of 630 m, with a maximum span length of 70 m. Piers and abutments are made of cast-in-place reinforced concrete. The height of the piers varies from approximately 7.5 m to a maximum of 18.5 m depending on the slope of the ground. The bridge exhibits a continuous-beam static scheme, with vertically prestressed internal joints ensuring the continuity between the cantilever beams at spans no. 3, 5, 7, and 9 (see Fig. 1(b)). In particular, the upper and lower segments of every cantilever beam are connected by means of two systems of longitudinal sliding supports and 30 post-tensioned vertical Dywidag bars, these last embedded into the structural joints at the end of the construction phase. With this configuration, structural joints allow the transferring of shear stresses and bending moments between the connected cantilever beams, as well as thermal dilatation (Dywidag bars are located inside plastic pipes that allow for their movement along the longitudinal direction of the bridge). The post-tensioned box girder is connected to the abutments by means of longitudinal sliding supports, while hinges and longitudinal sliding supports alternatively ensure the connection between the box girder and the piers. The bridge prestressing system also includes post-tensioning tendons deployed at different positions of the box girder. The digital 3D model of the case study bridge was constructed by using the BIM design platform Revit 2022 by Autodesk (Seidler 2021) based on information from the original design drawings and photogrammetric surveys carried out by the Authors.

Fig. 2. Case study bridge: (a) aerial view; (b) detail of a structural joint.

3.2. Risk evaluation The Italian Guidelines were selected as a reference standard to assess the risk conditions of the case study bridge (Santarsiero et al 2021, Meoni et al 2023). The assessment procedures to evaluate the Structural-Foundational Class of Attention (CoA), Seismic CoA, Landslides CoA, and Hydraulic CoA of bridges (i.e., structural, seismic, landslides, and hydraulic risks) were implemented into the selected BIM platform by using custom Python scripts. Data required for the assessment were collected in Excel worksheets and then processed directly into the BIM environment.