SMART BRIDGE A TOOL FOR ESTIMATING THE MILITARY LOAD CLASSIFICATION OF BRIDGES USING VARYING LEVELS OF INFORMATION..

A major consideration in planning and executing military deployments is determining the routes available for moving troops and equipment. Part of this planning means ensuring that all of the bridges along the routes are able to support the specialized equipment needed. Because few trained and experienced bridge analysts are available, an automated tool is required to assist military engineers and planners in quickly and accurately determining the capacity or Military Load Classification of bridges. This tool must be flexible enough to handle various types of bridges, run on multiple platforms (Sun UNIX and PC Windows), be usable by engineers with various levels of experience, and be able to utilize various analysis methods depending on the amount of information available.