Post-Earthquake Rapid Inspection Planning for Bridges in Western Kentucky

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for the rapid assessment of bridge’s safety and functionality following a major seismic event in rural areas. The proposed model considers a combination of the bridge ranking prior to the seismic event and a computer assist program to identify the “efficient completion time” strategy for the post-earthquake bridge inspection team to inspect the critical bridge’s components damage level. Application of the proposed methodology is conducted on the Purchase Parkway in Western Kentucky. By setting the required inspection time to 40 minutes per bridge, it is estimated herein that a non-trained inspection team and without computer assist would conduct the inspection for all 61 bridges in a period exceeding 40 hours. On the other hand, by setting the time to 20 minutes for a well-trained team with computer assist, it will need 22 hours to inspect all 61 bridges, and 5 hours to inspect provisionally the 9 high risk bridges.