PSI - Issue 62

Elena Elettore et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 62 (2024) 113–120 Elettore et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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3. Methodologies for the classification of defect levels The methodology proposed by the Italian Guidelines on risk classification and management is summarized in Figure 6. The whole framework proposed by the Guidelines for ordinary bridges and viaducts is based on five levels of analysis (from level 0 to 4). In addition, high importance bridges (i.e., important in terms of socio-economic consequences of their collapse and for maintaining communications especially in emergencies) should be analysed according to an additional level (level 5) and also by considering the network resilience. However, this study is devoted to the analysis and comparison of methodologies devoted to the inspections and the classification of the defect levels. Therefore, it will focus mainly on the first two levels (0 to 1). Level 0 is mainly related to the geolocalization and census of the bridges, and it is devoted to gathering the available information and documentation data on the individual bridges, while level 1 is related to the specific site inspections for verifying the current state of degradation and the possible presence of structural and non-structural components affected by significant defects, as well as potential risk conditions associated with landslide events or hydrodynamic actions. As it can be observed from Figure 6, the central focus of the approach, on whose results subsequent evaluations are based, is Level 2, i.e. the definition of attention classes. However, the study presented in this paper is related to the Level 1, aiming at giving some preliminary observations regarding the key similarities and differences between the guidelines and the ASPI approach.

Figure 6. Multilevel approach and relationships among the analysis levels of the Italian Guidelines by MIT (adapted from Santarsiero et al. 2021)

In the MIT approach, the defect sheets comprise the descriptions of the degradation phenomena to be detected during the inspection and criteria for identifying the parameters to be assigned. Each sheet refers to a specific defect. They are divided into macro-groups according to the material on which the defect may occur, such as steel, masonry, reinforced concrete, pre-stressed concrete, wood. In addition, other sheets refer to generic defects, support elements, foundations and other elements. Each defect is identified by a number that allows its identification in the defect sheets. Conversely, the ASPI approach presents a catalogue of defects and for each defect, it identifies the structural elements that could be affected. To clarify the comparison between the MIT and ASPI defect sheets, the