Performance indicators for bridges: Results based on the ASCE‐SEI Technical Council on Life‐Cycle Performance, Safety, Reliability and Risk of Structural Systems

Over the last three decades, the implementation of reliability methods for assessing the safety and evaluating the performance of structures and infrastructure systems has gained wide-spread acceptance in the structural engineering community. An increasing number of researchers are applying reliability methods directly for evaluating the safety of specific projects and structural systems. But, more importantly, reliability-based design specifications have been adopted for different types of structural systems, including bridges. As the use of structural reliability methods expands to new applications, a review of the performance indicators and criteria recently utilized, and those upon which existing specifications are based need to be investigated to help engineers to assess the adaptability of current approaches to new situations, such as aging and deterioration processes, maintenance actions and repair interventions, abnormal loads and accidental actions, emergency response to natural and man-made hazards, among others. To this purpose, a huge work has been carried out to review the formulation and implementation in practice of probabilistic performance indicators within the ASCE-SEI Technical Council on Life-Cycle Performance, Safety, Reliability and Risk of Structural Systems. The Technical Council was created in 2008, replacing the former ASCE-SEI Technical Administrative Committee on Structural Safety and Reliability and its associated Technical Committees (Buildings, Bridges, Offshore Structures, Fatigue and Fracture) with a new Council with revised and updated objectives and scope. The Technical Council provides a forum for reviewing, developing, and promoting the principles and methods of life-cycle performance, safety, reliability, and risk of structural systems in the analysis, design, construction, assessment, inspection, maintenance, operation, monitoring, repair, rehabilitation, and optimal management of civil infrastructure systems under uncertainty. To achieve these objectives, three Task Groups have been formed. This presentation will specifically report on the findings and recommendations made by Task Group 2 during the review of the literature related to the application of reliability-based structural system performance indicators, both in European and non-European countries, with emphasis on bridges.