Optimum Service Life Management Based on Probabilistic Life-Cycle Cost-Benefit Analysis

Abstract

Engineering structures including civil infrastructures require a life-cycle cost and benefit during their service lives. The service life of a structure can be extended through appropriate inspection and maintenance actions. In general, this service life extension requires more life-cycle cost and cumulative benefit. For this reason, structure managers need to make a rational decision regarding the service life management considering both the cost and benefit simultaneously. In this paper, the probabilistic decision tool to determine the optimal service life based on cost-benefit analysis is presented. This decision tool requires an estimation of the time-dependent effective cost-benefit under uncertainty to formulate the optimization problem. The effective cost-benefit is expressed by the difference between the cumulative benefit and life-cycle cost of a deteriorating structure over time. The objective of the optimization problem is maximizing the effective cost-benefit, and the associated solutions are the optimal service life and maintenance interventions. The decision tool presented in this paper can be applied to any deteriorating engineering structure.