A study on the environmental impact prediction method of bridge life cycle maintenance using bridge maintenance database

Abstract

Environmental impact analyses of infrastructural elements (through life cycle assessment) have been actively pursued worldwide, as a strategy for sustainable structural development. Accordingly, data pertaining to structures are required to enable the prediction of environmental impact. In the particular case of bridge structures, although actual maintenance performance is managed in the form of various datasets, little research has resulted from the use of this data, and has mostly involved limited scenarios that are used to estimate the environmental impact of the maintenance stage. The purpose of this study is to propose an equation model that uses inputs regarding bridge maintenance to evaluate the environmental impact of the maintenance of a bridge structure. For this purpose, the use of different maintenance methods and the ratio of the bridge maintenance area to total area based on maintenance method used were calculated using the road bridge maintenance performance dataset of Korea, and the proportion of main input materials used for each maintenance method was estimated. In addition, an equation model for estimating the annual bridge maintenance environmental impact was proposed using these results, and the environmental impact per unit area due to the maintenance of road bridges in Korea was evaluated. © International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Urban Development.