Sustainable Frameworks and Life Cycle Assessment for Reinforced Concrete Bridges for Sustainability in Transportation

The proposed sustainable frameworks will be developed to reduce the environmental impact of reconstruction of existing bridges as well as to minimize the economic impact of losing bridge functionality after strong earthquakes. Sustainability of RC bridges will be investigated and assessed for structural sustainability which life span of RC bridges will be assessed by proposed sustainable models using robust fiber-based nonlinear finite element models (FEMs) and damage models to identify structural deficiencies for seismic retrofit and maintenance. Specially, a comparison of the effects of near-fault and far-fault strong earthquakes on the life span of RC bridges will be investigated. Recommendations for bridge maintenance including retrofit of RC bridges with green materials will be studied. In addition, environmental sustainability regarding environmental impacts of the process in all life cycle stages of the RC bridges including design, construction, use, maintenance, and disposal states will also be investigated.