Investigation on bridges degradation

• Grant number: 11/20319-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: January 01, 2012
• End date: December 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Civil Engineering - Structural Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Tulio Nogueira Bittencourt
• Grantee: Ana Carolina Marques
• Host Institution: Escola Politécnica (EP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The concern about structures durability is recent in the construction industry and it has changed the belief that such constructions could last forever (Cunha et al., 1996). Most of the deterioration processes development is gradual and has visible manifestations or is detected by specific tests. Thus, problems can be identified, diagnosed and solved before they reach serious proportions or need high financial and social costs for the structure recovery. In this context, it is relevant to assess the loading capacity of the structure and establish its use conditions or repair. It is also important to evaluate the structural elements conditions in order to detect any deterioration processes, whether on initial stage or in advanced one, and investigate and determine the causes of this deterioration. In this sense, the evaluation of structural elements from the durability point of view may be relevant, using reliable tests that can provide the parameters needed for a durability analysis.This work is placed in the Group Modeling of Concrete Structures - GMEC, coordinated by Professor Tulio Nogueira Bittencourt, which will supervise this work. The GMEC has made since 1998, several researches in the areas of monitoring, experimental analysis and computational modeling of concrete and steel structures, which gives the group the know-how that can be seen in several publications.The main objectives of this work is to study the mechanisms of degradation and the methodologies for assessing the structural integrity of bridges, to perform the structures healthy monitoring for assessing their behavior and contribute to the instrumentation of a long term test in order to provide information for a posterior reliability analysis. (AU)