Condition and Reliability Assessment of Constructed Facilities

Abstract

Nondestructive and destructive dynamic field testing and structural identification studies on actual constructed facilities are presented. The specimens discussed here include a 27-story RC flat-slab building, an RC-slab bridge, two 80-year-old steel-truss bridges, and three RC-slab on steel-girder bridges of various ages. The seismic vulnerability of the mid-rise building was evaluated and the test bridges were rated by code procedures as well as by field-calibrated comprehensive 3-D FE models developed by structural identification. Experimentally measured and analytically simulated modal flexibilities of the bridges were correlated with deflections obtained under proof-load-level truck-load tests. The rating factors obtained by field-calibrated models exceeded the corresponding operating rating factors by two and a half to four times for all of the test bridges.