Optimum Life-Cycle Cost Design of Steel Bridges

This paper proposed a general formulation of Life-Cycle Cost (LCC) models and LCC effective design system models of steel bridges suitable for practical implementation. An LCC model for the optimum design of steel bridges included initial cost and direct/indirect rehabilitation costs of a steel bridge as well as repair/replacement costs, loss of contents or fatality and injury losses, road user costs, and indirect socioeconomic losses. The new road user cost model and regional socioeconomic losses model were especially considered because of the traffic network. Illustrative design examples of an actual steel box girder and an orthotropic steel deck bridge were discussed to demonstrate the LCC effectiveness of the design of steel bridges. Based on the results of the numerical investigation, the LCC-effective optimum design of steel bridges based on the proposed LCC model was found to lead to a more rational, economical, and safer design compared with the initial cost-optimum design and the conventional code-based design.