Prediction of Service Life of Pre-stressed Concrete Bridge by Fault Tree Analysis Model

X.J He1, P.A Nguyen1

Department of Bridge and Road Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China (nguyenphananhvu2006@yahoo.com) section and then studying on the level of structure systems reliability will be implemented. II. THE MAIN EFFECT OF EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT ON THE STRUCTURES RESISTANCE 1) Reinforcement corrosion: Reinforcement can be eroded by chemical effect and electrolysis in environment. When the corrosion of reinforcement occurs, its volume will be greater than the original one, and it starts to impact on concrete. The surface layer of concrete will be cracked. The expansion of crack creates conditions for steel to be rusted. This corrosion causes the reduction of connecting between concrete and reinforcement. Therefore, structural resistance will be reduced. 2) Stress corrosion of pre-stressed reinforcement: Because reinforcement in concrete structure is prestressed, it will be affected by pre-stress and corrosion together. They have effects on each other. Therefore, the losses of stress in reinforcement will occur more quickly. III. TIME-VARYING STRUCTURE RESISTANCE MODEL The feature of time-varying structure in previous work by [1,2] is a complex stage which includes chemical, physical and dynamic geology. Therefore, time-varying structure can be supposed as the function of two above effected factors. The effecting process is natural and complex. In the different circumstances and exploiting conditions, change in structure resistance will be different. The random process of structure resistance is expressed as:

Abstract - Fault Tree Analysis uses the logical model and mapping methods to analyse, calculate or estimate the probability of phylogenetic. Thus, the reliability of the system, safety and risk could be assessed. They have been widely used in systems reliability study and to quantify the correlation of potential risk of the system. In the existing of reliability analysis, the time factor generally doesnt need to be taken into account. However, composition properties of the materials decrease would lead to the reduction of the level of structural reliability. Therefore, structures reliability is actually an amount of time-varying. Comprehensive consideration of the above factors, the analysis of a variety of factors will impact on the service life of pre-stressed concrete girder bridge, to build bridge structure analysis model. From the calculation of timevarying structure systems reliability, the service life of bridge could be evaluated to find safety and reliability of structure. Keywords pre-stressed concrete; reliability index; failure probability; reliability

I. INTRODUCTION Because of Chinas rapid economic growth, transportation system is required to be upgraded and improved. From 1957, China has started to build prestressed concrete bridges. Relying on its advantages such as structural stiffness, small deformation, good crack resistance, and in particular, the flattening of deflection curve of main beam, driving comfort and the getting better control of construction quality and construction schedules, little requirement in bridge maintenance and repair,...etc, this bridge type is built widely in roads and railway bridges. In operating process, failures in different levels of bridge occurred because of external environments impact or material degradation. Therefore, solution must be chosen: rebuilding new bridge or maintaining and repairing. For the existing bridge structure, in order to make rational investment, their life needs to predict accurately. The using of common forecasting method is the theory of reliability. Its core content consists of the structure of currently bearing, a variety number of external factors, structure resistances and roles on the structural reliability (safety, suitability and durability). Through the probability theory and mathematical statistics method, the level of structures safety can be defined. The development of the theory of reliability can be divided in to components and systems reliability. First, studying on the level of structures reliability of a component or a

R(t ) = R0 (t )
where,

(1)

R0 is structure resistance when t=0, (t ) is

a deterministic function. Here, the corrosion of steel and the degradation of concrete strength would be used to investigate the structure of decay resistance. 1) Duration corrosion resistance model of steel: For both pre-stressing and common steel, when crack appears on the surface layer of concrete, steel strength will increase and decrease according to time, the value of their mean and standard deviation value is a function of time corrosion. Experimental studies have shown that the corrosion strength of steel is a normal distribution. In the

978-1-4244-8503-1/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

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literature [3], after t years, the average strength of steel can be expressed as

IV. BRIDGE STRUCTURAL SYSTEM RELIABILITTY CALCULATION For the bridge structure, the structures reliability analysis not only analyse a failure mode but also analyse lot of other factors. For example, in case of a structure with numerous redundancies, the destruction of one or several components will not lead to the destruction of the entire structure, and the combination of different components also have different patterns of structural damage. Fault Tree Analysis method [5, 6] would be applied to study system structures reliability. The major work is divided into the identification of main failure mode and the calculation of failure probability of system structure. 1) Identification of the major failure mode: By identifying the main failure modes, namely structure of all possible failure modes, the contribution of structural system failure probability could be identified greater. The application of fault tree analysis consists of two core elements: branch and bound. Around branch-bound operations, the recognition of main failure pattern algorithm has two cores: - How to achieve the state transition of structural failure. - How to quickly and accurately generate the structure of system failure tree to trunks and branches. Basing on the principle of operation of branch-bound, for the past 20 years, researchers as [7, 8] have found various methods. The typical ones includes the limit coefficient , generalized force-bearing is more than the maximum criteria method, optimization criteria is great expansion, etc. This paper summarizes and advances the critical strength of the global branch bound to determine the main system failure modes. Thereby, a path would be established to reflect the failure of structural failure tree. The performance of critical strength of the global branch-bound includes two-step guidelines for control: the first step is to fix boundary on the topmost branches of failure tree branch to carry out the pre-treatment stage for branchbound, removal from the local angle of the judge which allows deleting failure tree branch. Access to the next sector, the number of branches and the range of the critical intensity distribution would be significantly reduced to be tacked with. The second step through a dynamic feedback loop to amend the flexibility for control of the borders. They would be applied to analyse the process of reducing monotony and gradually converges. It is the purpose of the performance of the global branch bound. In order to construct a dynamic feedback loop and amend the flexibility for control of the borders, this paper introduces two parameters: the critical strength of the final state system
* RS and the distributed critical strength
* to control wide limits of system cS . RS is defined as the

(t ) = (t ) 0

(2)

Among them: o is the average of the initial strength of steel, (t) is a time-varying function. The applications of the method of least squares fitting using polynomials can be given as:

(t )a1 + a2 (t 52.5) + a3 (t 52.5) 2 + a4 (t 52.5)3

(3)

Among them, a1 = 9.97029 E 01 , a2 = 1.89325E 04 a3 = 4.17406E 05 , a4 = 9.33615 07 Corresponding to t years latter, the standard deviation of steel strength can also expressed as:

(t ) = (t ) 0
Among them,

(4)

0 is the deviation of the initial strength of

steel; (t) is time-varying function. The applications of the method of least squares fitting using polynomials will give:

(t) = b1 + b2 (t 52.5) + b3 (t 52.5)2

+ b4 (t 52.5)3 5)5 + b5 (t 52.5) 4 + b6 (t 52) (5)
Among them, b1 = 0.91494 , b2 = 4.89933 E 03 ,

b3 = 9.57864 E 04 b5 = 4.05809 E 08

, ,

b4 = 4.29511E 05 , b6 = 8.92786 E 09

So, according to equation (2) ~ equation (5), the mean and standard deviation value of structure in service could be calculated at any time 2) Duration compressive strength model of concrete: For concrete material, in the literature [4] basing on the results of experimentation and measure at home and abroad, analysing attenuation of the strength of concrete in the general atmospheric environment, using statistical regression methods to propose the time-varying model of concrete strength and standard deviation

f (t ) = f cu ,0 1.4529e0.0245(ln t 1.7154) (6)

cu

f = f
cu

cu , 0

(0.0305t + 1.2368) (7)

Among them, f

cu , 0

, f

cu , 0

are the mean and standard

deviation value of 28 days compressive concrete strength respectively In this way, according to equation (6) - (7), the variation of compressive concrete strength during service could be calculated.

* flexible control of the border, RS = + as the initial set in order to ensure that the system is not missing the main

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failure modes. The calculation by the algorithm itself * ensure that the monotonousness of RS will decrease, and before finishing of the calculation, the minimum critical strength value of the system will be gathered. To vehicle load as the load increment of the critical strength of branches and boundary, we have an algorithm as follows: I = sign a( k ) rk rk k 1 (k) I i i Rrk = Rrkrk I A Irk ar(k ) Fri( ) mri i =1 Rr(kk ) (k) Frk = ( k) ark k 1 ( ) RSk(r ) = Fr( k ) + Fr(i ) mr k k i i i =1 (k) (k) Fmin = min Frk (10) Among them,

Among them: Pf s is failure probability which corresponds to failure mode;

Pfi j is the joint failure

probability of failure modes i, j. The research has shown that system (the second order) failure probability of the width of the upper and lower bounds depends on the sort of the result of failure mode. Usually, basing on the order of failure modes Pf 1 > Pf 2 > ... > Pfn , the calculation of Pfi
j

would be given as:

2 if ij 0 max PA , PB + min Pfij = min P , P 2( ) if 0 A B ij

(13)

ar(k ) is by the n +1 k times of residual k

k

modules of the structural system which are applied to the generalized load to obtain under rk stress unit; RrI rk is considering as the tension and compression of discrepancy for strength of the rk component; Fr(k )
k

ij i PA = [ i ] j 2 Among them 1 ij (14) i ij j PB = j 2 1 ij

indicated that the failure process of the k phase corresponds to the external load increment factor of failure component rk ; mri is a selected material parameter;

V. LIFE-TIME PREDICTION OF BRIDGE STRUCTURE A unified standard of structural reliability in highway bridge design (GB/T 50283-1999) [9], proposes the target of structure reliability index in design period in China as follows: TABLE I RECOMMENDATION THE VALUE OF TARGET RELIABILITY T IN BRIDGE STRUCTURE
1-degree Hierarchy 2-degree 3-degree

mri =0,1 correspond to the ideal elastic-plastic

k

( and the ideal brittle of failure component in turn; RSk( r) ) indicated in the kth phase of failure process which corresponds to the critical strength of failure component rk . In fact, the overall process of guideless branch-bound

which corresponds to the kth phase of the process of failure system, will use multiple bound of condition, if:
( * ( ) RSk( r)k ) min[cs RS , ck RSk(min) ]

(11)

Continued Continued Continued destructio Brittle destructio Brittle destructio Brittle n n n 4.7 5.2 4.2 4.7 3.7 4.2

Continuing to the next phase is to pre-select the failure unit, otherwise to pre-treat failure branch which can not enter the set of failure modes 2) Calculation of system reliability: The calculation of system reliability depends on the calculation of the major failure modes, and the calculation of reliability index of failure mode using JC method to achieve. This paper focuses on the calculation of system reliability. By using Ditlevsen upper and lower bounds (the second level) formula, the reliability of structural systems could be estimated. Namely, the failure probability of structural system Pf s satisfies:
n i 1 n n Pf1 + max Pfi Pfij ,0 Pfs Pfi maxPfij (12) i =2 j =1 i =1 i =2, j <1

Main portfolio

Additional 4.2 portfolio

5.7

3.7

4.2

3.2

3.7

The structural life-time prediction in this paper is based on the target reliability. The actual calculation of structural system is to predict service life of structure by a relationship between the reliability index S and the target reliability index T. The specific process is based on the attenuated characteristic of resistance and a certain time interval to calculate the structural system reliability index s in each interval. Comparing s and T, when s<T, it means that the bridge meets service life design. This

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calculation of s involved in the calculation of structural system reliability index and the calculation of attenuation structure resistance. VI. AN ACTUAL PROJECT The main bridge is a continuous pre-stressed concrete box-girder, a large-span girder one. Bridge span includes: 65m+3100m+65m, width of bridge deck is 12m. The cross-section bridge is a variable cross-section of singlebox form. The height of bridges box-girder at piers is 5.5m; the height of mid-span is 2.5m. The concrete grade of box-girder is 50; elastic modulus of concrete is 3.5104 Mpa; the pre-stressed reinforcement using tensile strength standard: fpk=1860Mpa; considering the impact of prestress loss, choosing control of tension stress: pd=1248Mpa; the continuous pre-stressed concrete boxgirder is built by in-situ concrete and cantilever construction method. Design vehicle load is -20 level, trailer is -100 level. The calculation bridge model is shown as below.

the revised structure of resistance to change into the limit state equation of failure modes, go back to step (2), recalculate Pfs and S. (5) If S <T, then finished the calculation. At this point, the value of variable time t in the attenuation structure resistance is a foundation to predict service life of the bridge. The establishment of fault tree analysis model for entire structure is shown in Figure 2.

Fig.1: Bridge Structural Analysis Model

A method would be presented as follows: - First, basing on variable characteristics of structural resistance to calculate the time -varying structural systems reliability index S - After that, basing on the relationship between S and T to predict service life of structure. Detail of calculation as follows: (1) According to the design of the bridge level and design requirements to determine the target of structure reliability index T (the safety design standard is level 2; according to material properties, considering the flexible damage, to set (T=4.2)), and established finite element model of the bridge. By using finite element analysis software, the internal forces of structure could be calculated. (2) According to models to calculate the value of the various sections resistance, using the result of the above internal forces analysis in conjunction with the critical strength of the overall branch - bound to search for the main failure modes of structural systems, establishing fault tree analysis of structural system. (3) Basing on Fault Tree Analysis to search for the main failure mode, using Ditlevsen lower and upper bounds (level 2) to calculate the structure of the system failure probability Pfs and systems reliability index S. (4) Compared S and T. If S T , then introduced attenuation structure resistance function according to time which amend the structure of resistance. After finishing

Fig.2: Fault Tree Analysis Model

According to Fault tree analysis model, the major failure modes of the reliability index as [10] and failure probability can be calculated as follows: TABLE 2 THE RELIABLE INDICATOR OF THE FAILURE MODES AND FAILURE PROBABILITY
Failure Mode 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Failure unit sequence 366235 366310 36639 366237 366310 36629 3665 366238 366239 366240 366465 366463 36633 Reliable indicator 5.2055 5.3215 5.3999 5.5222 5.47 5.4879 5.6004 5.6307 5.77 5.9836 6.0635 6.1186 7.1217 Failure Probability Pf 5.21E-07 2.83E-07 1.86E-07 9.53E-08 1.27E-07 1.15E-07 6.17E-08 5.20E-08 2.35E-08 6.70E-09 4.14E-09 2.96E-09 3.87E-12

With the correlation coefficient of various failure modes, Ditlevsen lower and upper bounds (level 2) would be applied to calculate the system failure probability Pf:

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9.673227E - 8 < Pf < 9.67228E 8

(15)

system reliability index change with time as the above shown. VII. CONCLUSION The structures reliability of pre-stressed concrete girder bridge reflects the overall performance of bridge. By using structural reliability to predict service life of structure, not only the existing structural design standard would be consistently adjusted, but also the repair and maintenance of structure could be applied. It is quite important for economical reasons. As structure system reliability index reflects better the actual structure reliability, the application of this calculation has more practical significances. According to the investigations result of the feasibility of this method, with a specific girder bridge, failure model of structure need to make specific judgments. Moreover, the structure of constituent material as well as force patterns and their environment may vary. Therefore, the attenuation resistance modes are also different, and in actual applications a rational model for the attenuation resistance should be established. REFERENCES
[1] Chun, QL, 2005. Time dependent reliability analysis of the seviceability of corrosion affected concrete structures. International Journal of Materials & Structural Reliability, 105-116. [2] Hikaru, N, Worapong, S, Ryosuke, Y, Minoru, K, 2006. Time dependent structural analysis considering mass transfer to evaluate deterioration process of RC structures. Japan Concrete Institute Vol.4, No.1, 147-158. [3] Li, YG, Zhao, GF, 1993. Approximate calculation method of Structural system reliability. Civil Engineering Technology 26(5): 70-76. [4] Dong, C, 1995. Structural system reliability theory and engineering. Postdoctoral research in Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. [5] Keary H, LeBeau, PE, 2007. Fault tree analysis of schoharie creek bridge collapse. Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, Vol.21, No.4, 320-326. [6] La S, Jianping L, Min Q, 2008. Study on applying fault tree analysis based on fuzzy reasoning in risk analysis of construction quality. Risk Management & Engineering Management, ICRMEM 08, International Conference. [7] Guo QL, Jin JL, 2007. Advanced analysis and design of steel frames. Copyright 2007 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, England. [8] Jinquan Z, Baidurya B, 2007. A system reliability based design equation for steel girder highway bridges. Journal of Structural Engineering, Vol. 34, No. 4, 284-290. [9] A unified standard of structural reliability in highway bridge design, GBT 50283-1999. [10] Satchi V, Raghu RS, 2007. Calculating confidence bounds for reliability index to quantify effect of distribution parameter uncertainty. AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference.

At one point, if the failure probability of bridge can be approximately taken as Pf = 9.67228E 8 , the reliable indicator at this time is S = 5.2055 > T = 4.2 . Thus, service life of the structure has not yet reached. After the carrying out calculation of the initial working of structure, its time-varying would be calculated. The composition of concrete and steel would be applied to calculate its attenuation intensity. A 10-year interval would be taken to calculate the system reliability index S of structure at a point in time. Comparison of relationship between S and T could be predicted by service life of structure. The detail as follows:
TABLE 3 THE CONTINUOUS BEAM BRIDGE OF SYSTEMS RELIABILITY INDEX AND SYSTEMS FAILURE PROBABILITY CORRESPONDING TO YEAR Time t(year) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 System reliability index s 5.2055 5.1805 5.1542 5.1217 5.0932 5.0393 4.9462 4.8029 4.6362 4.3549 3.6397 System failure probability Pf 9.67E-08 1.11E-07 1.27E-07 1.51E-07 1.76E-07 2.34E-07 3.78E-07 7.82E-07 1.77E-06 6.65E-06 1.36E-04

Fig. 3. Continuous beam bridge systems reliability index

By Fig. 3, combining with design requirements, the safety of bridge is level 2, target of structures reliability index T = 4.2 , the service life prediction of bridge is approximately 92 years. The curve line of structural

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