Dan M. Frangopol

Bio: Dan M. Frangopol is an academic researcher from Lehigh University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Reliability (statistics) & Bridge (interpersonal). The author has an hindex of 71, co-authored 794 publications receiving 20139 citations. Previous affiliations of Dan M. Frangopol include Hong Kong Polytechnic University & University of British Columbia.

Life-cycle cost design of deteriorating structures

Abstract: A lifetime optimization methodology for planning the inspection and repair of structures that deteriorate over time is introduced and illustrated through numerical examples. The optimization is based on minimizing the expected total life-cycle cost while maintaining an allowable lifetime reliability for the structure. This method incorporates: (a) the quality of inspection techniques with different detection capabilities; (b) all repair possibilities based on an event tree; (c) the effects of aging, deterioration, and subsequent repair on structural reliability; and (d) the time value of money. The overall cost to be minimized includes the initial cost and the costs of preventive maintenance, inspection, repair, and failure. The methodology is illustrated using the reinforced concrete T-girders from a highway bridge. An optimum inspection/repair strategy is developed for these girders that are deteriorating due to corrosion in an aggressive environment. The effect of critical parameters such as rate of co...

Maintenance and management of civil infrastructure based on condition, safety, optimization, and life-cycle cost∗

Abstract: Cost-competent maintenance and management of civil infrastructure requires balanced consideration of both the structure performance and the total cost accrued over the entire life-cycle. Most existing maintenance and management systems are developed on the basis of life-cycle cost minimization only. The single maintenance and management solution thus obtained, however, does not necessarily result in satisfactory long-term structure performance. Another concern is that the structure performance is usually described by the visual inspection-based structure condition states. The actual structure safety level, however, has not been explicitly or adequately considered in determining maintenance management decisions. This paper reviews the recent development of life-cycle maintenance and management planning for deteriorating civil infrastructure with emphasis on bridges using optimization techniques and considering simultaneously multiple and often competing criteria in terms of condition, safety and life-cycle...

Reliability-based life-cycle management of highway bridges

Abstract: The objective of bridge management is to allocate and use the limited resources to balance lifetime reliability and life-cycle cost in an optimal manner. As the 20th century has drawn to a close, it is appropriate to reflect on the birth and growth of bridge management systems, to examine where they are today, and to predict their future. In this paper, it is attempted to shed some light on the past, present, and future of life-cycle management of highway bridges. It is shown that current bridge management systems have limitations and that these limitations can be overcome by using a reliability-based approach. It is concluded that additional research is required to develop better life-cycle models and tools to quantify the risks, costs, and benefits associated with highway bridges as well as their interrelationships in highway networks.

Life-cycle performance, management, and optimisation of structural systems under uncertainty: accomplishments and challenges 1

Abstract: Our knowledge to model, analyse, design, maintain, monitor, manage, predict and optimise the life-cycle performance of structures and infrastructures under uncertainty is continually growing. However, in many countries, including the United States, the civil infrastructure is no longer within desired levels of performance and safety. Decisions regarding civil infrastructure systems should be supported by an integrated reliability-based life-cycle multi-objective optimisation framework by considering, among other factors, the likelihood of successful performance and the total expected cost accrued over the entire life-cycle. The primary objective of this paper is to highlight recent accomplishments in the life-cycle performance assessment, maintenance, monitoring, management and optimisation of structural systems under uncertainty. Challenges are also identified.

Resilience and Sustainability of Civil Infrastructure: Toward a Unified Approach

Abstract: In recent years, the concepts of resilience and sustainability have become very topical and popular. The concept of sustainability rose to prominence in the late 1980s and became a central issue in world politics, when the construction industry began to generate the first sustainable building assessment systems with more or less equally weighted environmental, economic, and social aspects for office buildings over their life cycles. On the other hand, resilience is usually connected to the occurrence of extreme events during the life cycle of structures and infrastructures. In the last decade, it has been used to minimize specifically direct and indirect losses from hazards through enhanced resistance and robustness to extreme events, as well as more effective recovery strategies. A detailed comparison of the studies dealing with either infrastructure sustainability or resilience presented in this paper leads to the conclusion that they have a vast number of similarities and common characteristics. For instance, they both combine structural analyses with social and economic aspects; they both rely on techniques for the life-cycle analysis and decision making; they both are in an early stage, where the academic world is trying to find the best way to promote the application of the scientific results among professional engineers and the industry. Indeed, both approaches try to optimize a system, such as a civil infrastructure system, with respect to structural design, utilized material, maintenance plans, management strategies, and impacts on the society. However, for the most part, researchers and practitioners focusing on either resilience or sustainability operate without a mutual consideration of the findings, which leads to a severe inefficiency. Therefore, this paper suggests that resilience and sustainability are complementary and should be used in an integrated perspective. In particular, the proposed approach is rooted in the well-established framework of risk assessment. The impact of the infrastructure and its service states on the society in normal operational conditions (assessed by sustainability analysis) and after exceptional events (assessed by resilience analysis) should be weighted by the associated probabilities of occurrence and combined in a global impact assessment. The proposed perspective and assessment technique is applicable to various types of civil infrastructure systems, but the case of transportation networks and bridge systems is emphasized herein. A numerical application dealing with the comparative analysis of two possible bridge layouts is presented to exemplify the approach. The results show that both resilience and sustainability analyses assess a relevant amount of the impact of the bridge on the community where it is built, so neither one can be neglected.

Survey of multi-objective optimization methods for engineering

Abstract: A survey of current continuous nonlinear multi-objective optimization (MOO) concepts and methods is presented. It consolidates and relates seemingly different terminology and methods. The methods are divided into three major categories: methods with a priori articulation of preferences, methods with a posteriori articulation of preferences, and methods with no articulation of preferences. Genetic algorithms are surveyed as well. Commentary is provided on three fronts, concerning the advantages and pitfalls of individual methods, the different classes of methods, and the field of MOO as a whole. The Characteristics of the most significant methods are summarized. Conclusions are drawn that reflect often-neglected ideas and applicability to engineering problems. It is found that no single approach is superior. Rather, the selection of a specific method depends on the type of information that is provided in the problem, the user’s preferences, the solution requirements, and the availability of software.

A review of structural health monitoring literature 1996-2001

Abstract: Staff members at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) produced a summary of the structural health monitoring literature in 1995. This presentation will summarize the outcome of an updated review covering the years 1996 2001. The updated review follows the LANL statistical pattern recognition paradigm for SHM, which addresses four topics: 1. Operational Evaluation; 2. Data Acquisition and Cleansing; 3. Feature Extraction; and 4. Statistical Modeling for Feature Discrimination. The literature has been reviewed based on how a particular study addresses these four topics. A significant observation from this review is that although there are many more SHM studies being reported, the investigators, in general, have not yet fully embraced the well-developed tools from statistical pattern recognition. As such, the discrimination procedures employed are often lacking the appropriate rigor necessary for this technology to evolve beyond demonstration problems carried out in laboratory setting.