Abstract
Deteriorating bridges require maintenance and repair activities to extend their service life and maintain a satisfactory performance level. Additionally, bridges located in highly corrosive environments, due to severe chloride exposure or marine environmental effects, may require more frequent maintenance actions during their life-cycle. These maintenance actions can lead to indirect costs associated with traffic delays and environmental effects, in addition to the direct cost of maintenance actions, which can significantly increase the life-cycle cost of the bridge under consideration. Accordingly, these indirect effects should be considered for the proper lifecycle management of deteriorating bridges. In addition, climate change may affect the performance of bridges vulnerable to flood and corrosion. This paper discusses probabilistic approaches applicable in optimizing maintenance activities of deteriorating bridges while considering climate change effects, direct maintenance costs, and indirect impact arising from maintenance and repair actions. Uncertainties associated with the various stages of the life-cycle management are discussed. The optimum maintenance strategies can be established through an integrated framework which minimizes the total life-cycle cost of the bridge under investigation while maintaining the desired performance level throughout the service life.