Erhaltungsmanagement von Wasserstraßen: Eine qualitative Methode zur Robustheitsbewertung

Maintenance management of waterways: A qualitative method for robustness assessment

The stock of hydraulic engineering facilities in Germany is ageing. Its maintenance requires an enormous amount of resources, which is why it is essential to implement the right measures at the right time. One strategy for increasing the reliability of the system is to take robustness into account when prioritizing maintenance measures. To this end, the Federal Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences have developed a qualitative method for assessing the robustness of existing hydraulic structures. It takes into account the results of the recalculation as well as other robustness properties and, in addition to the condition of the system, makes a statement about its maintenance requirements. The method was developed for massive ship locks, canal bridges and culverts. The application of the method to fourteen of these structures shows that a differentiation of the structures with regard to their robustness can be achieved by interpreting several characteristic values. A website is available for standardized implementation of the method and a dashboard for the visualization of the results. In the future, as soon as further structures have been recalculated, the method will be applied to a larger number of structures and, based on this, the grading system will be finalized with the infrastructure operator.