SAFOTEB project: towards new approaches for the reliability assessment of existing prestressed bridge

This paper presents the structure of new collaborative research project entitled SAFOTEB "A reviewed SAfety FOrmat for structural reliability assessment of post-TEnsioned concrete Bridges". The research aims at assessing the reliability of the current safety format and developing specific suggestions for existing concrete bridges with post-tensioned cables. To date, no European code provides specific guidance for such a purpose. Indeed, the status of conservation and possible defects of the cables may be hidden, enlarging the uncertainties in the structural assessment of such constructions. The basic steps of the research are: (i) definition of the probabilistic models for the main variables concerning the assessment of existing post-tensioned prestressed concrete bridges; (ii) reliability assessment and calibration of updated safety coefficients for the partial factors method; (iii) evaluation of the residual life and model updating through real-time continuous monitoring systems. The full procedure will be applied on existing case study structures used as benchmarks. The project is funded by FABRE, an Italian research consortium composed by universities and research institutions aimed at the evaluation and monitoring of bridges, viaducts, tunnels and other structures.