The paper describes the development of an expert system that wasdesigned to make recommendations for bridge management as to the proper courses of action that should be taken with regard to older highway bridges. Five basic options are possible; namely rehabilitation, improvement, replacement, abandonment, and routine maintenance. Based on an extensive set of rules, criteria and procedures as currently used by bridge engineers, this expert system offers a computerized approach that should reduce the time needed to evaluate the many thousands of older bridges yearly, as well as provide a consistent basis for decision making. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1290, Third bridge engineering conference, march 10-13, 1991, denver, colorado, volume 2.
Abstract