PSI - Issue 84

Valentina Picciano et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 84 (2026) 922–930

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making in the management of ageing bridge infrastructure. By integrating structural efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and qualitative life-cycle performance within a unified perspective, the evaluation enables a comparison among alternative retrofit solutions. The application to a representative case study showed that techniques designed to achieve the same structural targets may lead to substantially different outcomes when evaluated through a multi-criteria lens. Traditional jacketing solutions were found to be penalized by high material demand and added mass, although they may remain preferable for localized interventions or in contexts where simplicity of execution is prioritized. FRP based retrofits exhibited favorable life-cycle characteristics but were limited by bond-governed failure mechanisms and reduced structural effectiveness. External post-tensioning consistently emerged as the most balanced solution, combining high structural efficiency, economic convenience, and favorable qualitative life-cycle performance. Overall, the results confirm that retrofit strategies should not be selected solely on the basis of strength enhancement or initial costs, but through an integrated perspective explicitly accounting for economic and life-cycle-oriented criteria. Future developments will focus on extending the proposed framework to fully quantitative LCA analyses and on its application to a broader range of bridge typologies and intervention scenarios. Acknowledgements The studies presented here were carried out as part of the activities envisaged by the Agreement between the Italian Department of Civil Protection and the ReLUIS Consortium (DPC-ReLUIS project 2024-26, WP5-Task 5.4 “Interventions of existing bridges”). The contents of this paper represent the authors’ ideas and do not necessarily correspond to the official opinion and policies of DPC. References ANAS, 2024. “Listino prezzi 2024 - Nuove costruzione e Manutenzione programmata,” 2024, ANAS Direzione Tecnica, Italia. Ary, M. I., Kang, T. H. K., 2012. Shear-strengthening of reinforced & prestressed concrete beams using FRP: Part I—Review of previous research. International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials, 6(1), 41-47. Aykac, S., Kalkan, I., Aykac, B., Karahan, S., Kayar, S., 2013. Strengthening and repair of reinforced concrete beams using external steel plates. Journal of Structural Engineering, 139(6), 929-939. Chen, L., Qiang, X., Sun, P., Zhang, S., Jiang, X., 2024. Experimental and theoretical study on flexural behavior of prestressed concrete beams strengthened by CFRP tendons with external unbonded retrofit system. Journal of Building Engineering, 89, 109301. Daly, A. F., Witarnawan, W., 1997. Strengthening of bridges using external post-tensioning. In Conference of eastern Asia society for transportation studies, Seoul, Korea. Deng, L., Wang, W., Yu, Y., 2016. State-of-the-art review on the causes and mechanisms of bridge collapse. Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, 30(2), 04015005. Di Prisco, M., 2019. Critical infrastructures in Italy: State of the art, case studies, rational approaches to select the intervention priorities. In Proceedings of the fib Symposium 2019: Concrete-Innovations in Materials, Design and Structures (pp. 49-58). International Federation for Structural Concrete. EN 15643-5, 2017. Sustainability of construction works - Sustainability assessment of buildings and civil engineering works - Part 5: Framework on specific principles and requirement for civil engineering works. EN 17472, 2022. Sustainability of construction works – sustainability assessment of civil engineering works – calculation methods. Godart, B., 2020. Pathology, appraisal, repair and management of old prestressed concrete beam and slab bridges. In Design, Assessment, Monitoring and Maintenance of Bridges and Infrastructure Networks (pp. 89-106). Routledge. ISO 14040:2006. Environmental Management—Life Cycle Assessment—Principles and Framework. ISO: Geneva, Switzerland, 2006. ISO 14044:2018. Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Requirements and guidelines, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2018. Ko, Y. F., Gonzalez, J., 2025. Sustainable Frameworks and Life Cycle Assessment for Reinforced Concrete Bridges for Sustainability in Transportation [Research Brief]. Milić, I., Bleiziffer, J., 2024. Life cycle assessment of the sustainability of bridges: methodology, literature review and k nowledge gaps. Frontiers in built environment, 10, 1410798. Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti (MIT), 2020. Linee guida per la classificazione e gestione del rischio, la valutazione della sicurezza ed il monitoraggio dei ponti esistenti (Decreto n. 578 del 17 dicembre 2020). Passoni, C., Palumbo, E., Pinho, R., Marini, A., 2022. The LCT challenge: defining new design objectives to increase the sustainability of building retrofit interventions. Sustainability, 14(14), 8860.