Evaluation of Policies for the Maintenance of Bridges Using Discrete Event Simulation

dc.contributor.authorDevulapalli, Srinathen
dc.contributor.committeechairMartinez, Julio C.en
dc.contributor.committeememberde la Garza, Jesus M.en
dc.contributor.committeememberFlintsch, Gerardo W.en
dc.contributor.departmentCivil Engineeringen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:43:55Zen
dc.date.adate2002-08-23en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:43:55Zen
dc.date.issued2002-08-16en
dc.date.rdate2003-08-23en
dc.date.sdate2002-08-21en
dc.description.abstractWith the recent developments of several bridge managements systems and their wide-spread use, bridge engineers are realizing the importance of systematic and well planned investments and appropriate management. However the results are far from satisfactory. Bridge management systems need more effective policy analysis tools that can take advantage of the vast amounts of available information to be more efficient. The objective of this research is to develop a policy analysis tool, which is generic in nature and can be applied to any bridge management system provided all the appropriate data is available. In particular, this policy analysis tool is geared to suit policy making, planning and budgeting for the interstate bridges in the state of Virginia. The policy analysis tool developed in this research is a discrete event simulation model capable of extracting information from text files in the Pontis Data Interchange format and simulate user defined element level policies. The model testing was performed using the interstate bridges of the Salem district in Virginia. All the relevant information was extracted from their PONTIS databases. Several scenarios with varying network policies were simulated. The results indicate the validity and the accuracy of the model. The policy analysis tool is a useful addition to the existing policy analysis tools and is capable of handling probabilistic distributions of data instead of single value averages. This will enable the tool to capture more information thereby making the simulation model more realistic. The general framework that was developed here can be applied to any infrastructure problem, and eventually it should be possible to achieve a discrete event simulation based integrated infrastructure management system.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.identifier.otheretd-08212002-135548en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-08212002-135548/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/34678en
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartThesis-FinalCopy.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectpolicy analysis toolen
dc.subjectBridge management systemen
dc.subjectSimulationen
dc.titleEvaluation of Policies for the Maintenance of Bridges Using Discrete Event Simulationen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineCivil Engineeringen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

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