Risk-informed inspection and maintenance planning for deteriorating structural systems

Abstract

Structural systems are subjected to several deteriorating processes throughout their service life. Deterioration over a long run can significantly affect the integrity of the structure and its subsequent failure can lead to severe consequences with tremendous monetary loss. Hence regular inspection and maintenance is carried out to identify and repair critical locations to keep the structure safe. The overall cost incurred during the service life of the structure can be significant, hence it is important to minimize it by adopting optimal inspection and maintenance strategies. Most of the literature works focus mainly on system level inspection and maintenance strategies whereas the strategies developed for partial inspection and maintenance is still limited. The objective of this research is to develop a comprehensive framework which will guide the engineers and decision makers to determine optimal risk-based inspection and maintenance strategies based on their requirement of faster system level analysis or a detailed component level analysis. Several options and suggestions are provided throughout the framework to choose and navigate through the different approaches. Two numerical examples are carried out to demonstrate the implementation of framework for practical applications.