Development and Practical Application of a Bridge Management System (J-BMS) in Japan

Abstract

This paper presents a new bridge management system (J-BMS). It is integrated with a concrete bridge rating expert system that can be used to evaluate the serviceability of existing concrete bridges. The proposed J-BMS not only evaluates the performance of bridges, but also offers a rehabilitation strategy based on a combination of maintenance cost minimization and quality maximization. In this system, the genetic algorithm (GA) technique was used to search for an approximation of the optimal maintenance plan. This was constructed using Visual Basic and the C language. Furthermore, this paper examines the results of applying this system to some in-service bridges and the results of questionnaire surveys of experts. A comparison of these results shows that this system can accurately predict optimal maintenance planning, as well as bridge rating.