Bridge maintenance priorization through visual inspection and

monitoring results
J.F. Rodrigues
PROCERT Engenharia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
D.L. Rosa; R.L. Queiroz, F.A. Reis, J. Kneip Neto, V. Ippolito, L.C. Sampaio & C.L. Santiago
MRS Logistica, Juiz de Fora, Brazil

ABSTRACT: Since 1996, MRS Logística Company has been responsible for an extensive transportation net-
work including 631 bridges and viaducts, that enable transportation of iron ore and steel products. To guarantee
structural performance of bridges and viaducts, many visual inspections and structural monitoring have been
performed, generating a large quantity of data, demanding an effective Bridge Management System (BMS).
This paper summarizes challenges and lessons learned in implementing a bridge inspection standard and a new
BMS, which is expected to support the well-planned maintenance by determining bridge condition, predicting
future deterioration, and selecting optimal timing. For this, the damages were evaluated in a quantitative way,
and an approach based on element level inspection was adopted in this new version, what has brought benefits
of detailed condition assessments using the raw inspection information, expanded performance measures and
bridge management system deterioration of this assets. Since the integrated maintenance database was built
such as for inventory data and the inspection records, the number of deteriorated bridges and viaducts which
need rehabilitation was determined. An innovative aspect was to consider data obtained from the structural tests
and monitoring in this new approach, allowing considering others structural performance indicatives, like con-
crete strengths and remaining fatigue life, during the ranking of the priority matrix.

1 INTRODUCTION As a result of the history of the railways construc-

Around the end of the last century Brazilian railways
went through a privatization process, and Agencia
Nacional de Transportes Terrestres (ANTT) was cre-
ated to supervise the companies which had the con-
cession to administer railways during a period, i.e.,
the railway concessionaries. As a matter of fact, the
maintenance process of the railway bridges is cur-
rently done by these concessionaries.
Since 1996, MRS Logística Company has been re-
sponsible for an extensive transportation network in-
cluding 631 bridges and viaducts, located in the most
economically prominent states located in South-east-
ern Brazil. This network is composed by railways that
enable transportation of iron ore from reserves of Mi-
nas Gerais to the main Brazil ports in São Paulo and
Rio de Janeiro. Some of these railways, like Ferrovia
do Aço Railway, was constructed in 1970´s, and had
it started operation in 1980, connecting Jeceaba (MG)
to Volta Redonda (RJ). Other railways, in which first
intention of construction was to people or grain trans-
portation, were adapted to ore transportation. It was
the case of Linha do Centro (Center Line) Railway,
which had its construction started in 1870 and it was
concluded by the 1910´s.
tion, bridges under MRS´s concession are from 10 to
130 years old, with different structural arrangements.
About 584 bridges have the same structural type ar-
rangement along its entire length, Figure 1. On the re-
maining bridges, there are two or three types of struc-
tural types along its entire length, Figure 2. Providing
proper maintenance to all this extensive railway net-
work, built at different periods, is an arduous task that
involves professionals of different qualifications.
This diversity of structural types required an em-
bracing maintenance plan that comprised bridge as-
sessment as an indicator to structural rehabilitation.
Bridge assessment main activities are geometric sur-
vey, visual inspection, and monitoring, from which a
large data base was generated, what demanded the de-
velopment of the first bridge management system
(BMS) around 2014.
After the start of the concession, it was noticed ab-
sence of information about most of the bridges,
mainly those located on Linha do Centro Railway, the
oldest one of the railways. As a first step, some expe-
rienced counsellors were contacted, and they could
provide valuable information about construction, and
remedial actions taken to rehabilitate the bridge struc-
ture and operational events that can indicates struc-
tural performance loss. In such context the first BMS
was aimed to collect first information about the
bridges, like numbers of span, structural arrange-
ments, and columns height.
Figure 1. Bridges with the same structural arrangement types
along its entire length
Figure 2. Bridges with different structural arrangement types
along its entire length
The first version of bridge´s priority matrix was
developed based in a risk-oriented approach. So, the
higher the risk the greater the priority to provide a
structural rehabilitation of the bridge.
For 4 years, the first BMS system was used to reg-
ister all information collected about the bridges,
which were stored in a spreadsheet. There was a rou-
tine developed in the macro that could rank the prior-
ity index of the bridges, enabling the concessionary to
make a prioritization of the resources among them.
In the course of time and with the increase of quan-
tity and diversity of data coming from bridge assess-
ment, it was noticed that BMS should be more com-
prehensive, beyond what its computational structure
should be adapted to consider these new data. Also,
the concessionary would like to expand the same idea
of managing bridges to apply to other types of assets
like culverts and tunnels. This new BMS System was
called SGA, i.e., an Asset Management System.
2 VISUAL INSPECTION
2.1 The deepening and the frequency of inspections
There are four types of bridge inspection recognized
by NBR-9452 (2016), register inspection, routine in-
spection, special inspection and extraordinary inspec-
tion. For routine inspections, a maximum interval be-
tween two campaigns of one year is recommended,
and for special inspections, a maximum interval of
five years. At this point it must be emphasized that a
tendency of inspection standardization is searching
for a more rational way to establish frequency of pe-
riodic inspections. Inspection frequency recom-
mended by standardization must serve as a guide but
can be changed based on bridge importance and dete-
rioration prediction drawn from previous inspection
records and traffic condition. In FIB-17, for example,
it is suggested that assets be categorized into three
“asset groups” reflecting criticality, that might influ-
ence the relative inspection frequency. As a guide,
structures in good condition in benign environments
should undergo a routine inspection at intervals not
exceeding three – ten years. The frequency might in-
crease to perhaps annually or six-monthly for older
structures in poor condition and in aggressive envi-
ronments.
2.2 Routine inspection
For routine inspections there are no special access de-
vices available to the inspectors. So, they can reach
only visible and easy-access parts of the structure.
The purpose is to maintain an overview of the general
condition of the whole infrastructure stock, and to re-
veal significant damage in due time. During routine
inspections tests are not accomplished and attention
needs to be paid to various factors, including:
a) Verification of information gathered during
the planning of assessment.
b) The appearance of the original concrete sur-
face.
c) The presence of cracks, their appearance and
pattern.
d) Deterioration of the concrete itself.
e) Exposed bars.
f) Deformations of the structure.
To accomplish these inspections on MRS´s rail-
way bridges, there are six inspectors, that work in
pairs. Currently the concessionary fulfils the require-
ments of NBR and these three pairs of inspectors ac-
complish routine inspection in the 631 bridges every
year, what gives a rate of about 210 bridges/pair.
Year.
Recently, the Engineering team, made up of spe-
cialists and inspectors, have used drones to guarantee
access to regions previously not reached with com-
mon inspections, thus guaranteeing broader and more
accurate results.
2.3 Special inspection
To accomplish special inspections in the bridges, the
concessionary retains and has direct contracts with
engineering firms, what is deemed necessary to aug-
ment its own staff for the testing and inspection pro-
grams. The scope of the work to be done in each
bridge is provided by engineers of the concessionary,
and firms are selected according to its expertise. The
inspection activities are also supervised by the same
group of engineers who elaborated the performance
specifications.
For special inspections, better access conditions to
bridge structure are provided like climbing inspectors
and scaffolds. With these features it enables inspec-
tion to be more comprehensive and more detail about
damages and its location and extension are surveyed.
During special inspections some tests are accom-
plished, as for example ultrasonic pulse velocity, phe-
nolphthalein, electro-potential mapping and resistiv-
ity evaluation in concrete structures, and ultrasonic
defect detection, liquid penetrant, and magnetic parti-
cle in steel structures.
In some cases, in-depth inspections are performed
to better identify any deficiencies found. It may in-
clude petrographic and microscopic analysis on cored
samples when there are cracks with Alkali-Silica Re-
action (ASR) features, for example. Or tests to inves-
tigate presence of chlorides and sulfates on concrete.
For concrete bridges affected with ASR, additional
test procedures have been accomplished. One of them
is the Damage Rating Index (DRI), a semi-quantita-
tive microscopic procedure, and other is the Stiffness
Damage Test (SDT), a mechanical and cyclic test pro-
cedure. Both tests were found to be quite suitable to
appraise ASR-induced expansion and deterioration in
concrete. In the field, the cracking index (CI) has been
applied, a crack mapping process that can provide a
quantitative assessment of the existing cracking ex-
tent on the surface of affected concrete members.
These test procedures have been developed to as-
sess the current condition (i.e., diagnosis) and the po-
tential for further expansion/distress (i.e., prognosis)
of ASR-affected concrete.
3 MONITORING
For some bridges, an instrumentation program was
adopted with the objective of getting a better
knowledge of the structural performance and estimat-
ing remaining fatigue life of its structure.
It is well-known that each structure has its typical
dynamic behaviour which may be addressed as vibra-
tional signature. Any changes in a structure, such as
all kinds of damages leading to decrease of the load
carrying capacity have an impact on the dynamic re-
sponse. Since 2015 bridge dynamic responses have
been used to evaluate of quality and structural integ-
rity of the bridges along the railway. To obtain the
modal properties of the bridges, modal identification
techniques based on frequency response functions
(FRFs) were applied (Maia and Silva 1997).
Bridges were instrumented with accelerometers
installed in the ¼ and ½ sections of bridge spans. In
first arrangement, sensors were placed on vertical di-
rection to measure bending natural vibration modes,
and in others, sensors were placed in horizontal direc-
tion to measure horizontal natural vibration modes,
most of them related to column and bearing move-
ments. Besides that, strain gages were installed at
mid-span sections of bridge spans. A data acquisition
system was used for registration of the signals of the
bridge response.
Monitoring tests were accomplished during nor-
mal railway operation. Operational trains were used
as excitation force to the structure.
The procedures described above were applied to
identify 45 bridges in the railway operated by MRS.
This made it possible to increase knowledge of the
bridge structure, allowing measuring natural modes
and frequencies, impact coefficients and dynamic am-
plification factors of these bridges.
Remaining-fatigue-life of structural elements of
the bridge was also calculated by a fatigue analysis.
With this aim a hybrid analysis using data from mon-
itoring and from finite element models was accom-
plished.
4 BRIDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
4.1 Fundamentals of the new BMS
During the first BMS system, the evaluation of dam-
ages during routine inspection was done in a qualita-
tive way, demanding of the inspector to classify dam-
ages in four levels of severity (mild, normal,
moderate and severe). Thus, routine inspection was
dependent of the sensibility and technical knowledge
level of the inspectors. This situation has reflected in
the judgement of the element condition, as there were
divergences between damage classification made by
different inspectors when they refer to the same dam-
age. Besides that, previous procedure did not allow
the perception about the extension of the damage.
On the other side, special inspections were based
in ABNT 9452´s specifications. This standardization
presents references for acceptable levels of damage
that must be compared to the identified damages and
its intensity, allowing classification in five levels of
criticality (5-Excelent, 4-Good, 3-Regular, 2-Bad, 1-
Critical). Thus, special inspection reduces qualitative
aspects during damage evaluation, and gives an idea
of the damage extension.
With the aim of providing more efficient infor-
mation from the inspections, damages are being eval-
uated in a quantitative way, requiring measurements
of damage extension during the campaigns. These
measurements, even inaccurate, are more representa-
tive than the qualitative way done in the previous
BMS system. This procedure allows considering the
extension of damage and distinguishing elements
with the same damage and severity but with different
damage extension, what was not possible with the
qualitative assessment of the previous BMS.
As a matter of fact, implementation of this new
BMS procedure has demanded a better discretization
of structural elements during registration of the struc-
ture, Figure 3. Also training courses were provided to
the inspectors, as well as purchase of new equipment
and tools to accomplish the routine inspections.
4.2 Structural elements registration
English based normalization refers structural com-
ponents as belonging to the superstructure or to sub-
structure. Superstructure is the part of the bridge
above the foundation, like slabs, girders, and trans-
verse beams. It has the same meaning in Portuguese.
Substructure is the part of the bridge that supports the
superstructure such as the abutments and piers. In
Portuguese there are other division of the substructure
that is the “mesoestrutura” and “infraestrutura”, being
the first the assembly of elements that transfer forces
derived from superstructure to the “infraestrutura”,
and second term is referred to the elements that trans-
fer forces derived from “mesoestrutura” to the sub-
strate (soil). The first is referred to the columns and
the second to the foundations. Accordingly, to regis-
ter and organize information about the bridges, fol-
lowing components were considered:
a) Superstructure.
b) “Meso” structure.
c) “Infra” structure.
d) Bearings.
e) Joints.
f) Track.
g) Service Footbridges.
h) Accessories like cable racks, guard rails, fend-
ers, and protection barriers.
Figure 3. Elements discretization of a bridge structure
All the structural arrangements of the bridges op-
erated by concessionary were included on this SGA
registration, as well as main geometric characteristics
of the components of each part of the structure.
The registration process must be detailed, inserting
geometry information for each element of the struc-
ture. The lack of detailing of these elements in the ge-
ometry can have an impact on the asset register.
The average time for registration may vary accord-
ing to the topology of the asset, for concrete bridges
it is spent about 2 hours and for steel bridges around
4 hours.
4.3 Damage description and systematization
The second step was to organize all the damage to be
related to the structural components registered on
SGA. It was noticed that a great number of inspec-
tions were accomplished in the last 5 years and, ana-
lysing the results, it was verified that a lot of different
terms were used to refer to the same damage. In this
case, it should be considered that the Portuguese lan-
guage has sometimes a lot of different terms to be re-
lated to the same damage, or, on the other side, non-
existence of an exact word to refer to an English
word. One of them is the word “crack”, that in Portu-
guese is called “fissura” in concrete elements and
“fratura” in steel elements. Also, can be referred as
“rachadura”, or “trinca” in concrete structures, de-
pending of its width.
On the reports provided by engineering firms con-
tracted to accomplish visual inspections, it can be no-
ticed that there´s no agreement in the technical scien-
tific national community about the meaning of some
kind of damages. Also, it must be emphasized the ab-
sence of a national normalization or regulation spe-
cific to the subject of structural damages identified in
concrete and steel bridge structures, as for example
FIB-22 (2003) is a reference for European technical
community.
Thus, it was necessary to systematize and de-
scribe each type of damage and its consequences re-
garding durability, functionality, and stability of the
structure. This glossary of technical terms was dis-
tributed to the bridge inspectors, and to the engineer-
ing firms, with the aim of standardizing the terms that
describe structural damages.
Damage were grouped first by materials, second
by special regions that deserves attention, like steel
connections and bearings. Some groups that were
considered are shown in the following.
a) Concrete structures.
b) Steel structures.
c) Masonry structures.
d) Steel connections.
e) Metallic bearings.
f) Elastomeric bearings.
g) Metallic – elastomeric bearings.
h) Concrete bearings.
4.4 Damage level
The condition of each element is determined by per-
forming a field inspection and recording defects
quantities of the elements, from which one can infer
about its severity, defined in the condition state defi-
nition.
Gradation of the intensity or severity of the dam-
age is suggested in many references, without any nu-
merical values to be taken as references. However,
the gradation would mostly depend on the experience
of inspection and condition assessment personnel as
well as on national regulations.
In this new version of the BMS, the damage grade
is determined with the quantification of damage ex-
tension, instead of a qualitative level attributed by the
inspector. For example, area of concrete spalling and
width of fissures are measured during the inspections
and registered in the SGA.
4.5 Computational tools
SGA is a system information developed in excel us-
ing the VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), de-
signed in independent modulus, each one with a spe-
cific function. Graphical interfaces were developed to
standardize the procedures:
 Assets registrations.
 Routine inspections.
 Special inspections.
 Monitoring.
The interface developed for assets registration
comprises the systems and structural materials used
in bridges of the railways operated by the concession-
ary.
Due to the diversity of the information to be rec-
orded, the module of routine inspection is the most
robust. It must be able to include all the aspects of the
assessed structures, as well as the registration module.
5 PRIORIZATION MATRIX
5.1 Risk and criticality
To define prioritization ranking of bridges, risk was
defined as the dot product of the criticality by the fail-
ure probability.
(1)
where R = risk; C = criticality; and Pf = failure prob-
ability.
In this approach, the criticality is related to the
consequence of a possible occurrence of structural
failure, which includes loss of functionality. There-
fore, it represents an assigned value to the asset fail-
ure on the railway line where it is situated, i.e., it is
related to the cost to rehabilitate or replace the asset
if it fails, with the objective of restoring train’s flow
as quickly as possible.
In the first version of the matrix, 17 aspects were
used to determine the criticality of an asset. Some of
them were: (a) length of the bridge; (b) height of the
highest column; (c) maximum load expected; (d) ex-
istence of a span less than 15m; (e) if the bridge fol-
lows a curvature on plan. To each one of these as-
pects, it was attributed a rate between 0 to 1 and all of
them were considered during the ranking.
In the first version of the matrix, failure probability
was related to the damages identified during bridge
inspections.
. . (2)
where Dri = damage identified during routine inspec-
tions; Ddi = damage identified during special inspec-
tions; and A, B = adjustments coefficients.
In this new version, to calculate failure probability,
it was also considered intrinsic factors to the struc-
tural arrangement and historical condition of the
bridge. The historical condition of the bridge is re-
lated to systematic defects that were observed in some
bridges designed and constructed in the same epoch,
like in box steel bridges constructed around 1970. So,
the failure probability is calculated as:
(3)
where Pf = failure probability; Pr1 = due to the dam-
ages identified during inspections; Pr2 = intrinsic to
the structural arrangement and Pr3 = due to historical
condition of the bridges.
5.2 Weighing damage on different structural
elements
Damage have a more or less great impact on the
bridge condition, and on the assessment of the condi-
tion. Furthermore, the same damage has different
consequences when identified in different structural
elements. These differences were considered by
means of a weighing coefficient attributed to a dam-
age in a structural element. Variation of this coeffi-
cient is between 0 to 20. In Figure 4 it´s shown weigh-
ing coefficients to cracking, corrosion, drainage
defects and moss in different types of elements.
Figure 4. Weighing coefficients of damage to different structural
elements
5.3 Results from material testing
Some material properties affect the resistance and are
of importance for the safety evaluation of bridges.
Following tests are performed in concrete bridges:
a) Compression tests on concrete cores.
b) Carbonation depth.
c) Sclerometers tests.
d) Chloride concentration.
e) Sulphate content.
f) Cement type and content.
g) Ultrasonic pulse velocity.
h) Electrical resistivity tests.
i) Half-cell potential.
j) Cover depth.
On steel bridges, the following tests are per-
formed:
a) Chemical and metallographic tests.
b) Ultrasonic defect detection.
c) Penetrant testing.
d) Magnetic particle testing.
Results of these tests are considered during the pri-
oritization ranking of bridges. Some of these tests
have thresholds within which results are considered
satisfactory, such as chloride concentration or sul-
phate content. Others have a reference value, so re-
sults are more satisfactory as they come closer to that
reference.
Therefore, an index was created to consider the re-
sults of structural and material tests, which was called
the test index.
For element level inspections, it´s possible to as-
sign test indexes to consider structural tests. For tests
with a fixed value range, this index results in 0 or 1,
depending on whether it is within the regular range.
If the test index is one, result is consistent, and no co-
efficients are applied. Otherwise, a test coefficient
will be considered in factor B of equation 2.
For tests with reference values, test index de-
creases the further the result moves away from the
reference. For practical purposes a standard deviation
from normality is regular and no coefficient is con-
sidered. Otherwise, a test coefficient will be consid-
ered in factor B of equation 2. This coefficient is
larger the farther the result is from the reference. As
a rule, the general form of the test coefficient is given
by the formulation:
1 (4)
where Kt = test coefficient; Rt = test result; Ref = ref-
erence value for the test.
5.4 Results from monitoring testing
Fundamental frequencies measured during monitor-
ing tests of the bridges have been compared with a
pattern obtained from the previous measured values
since 2015. As adopted in many codes, superstructure
bending fundamental frequencies were plotted versus
span length of each bridge and compared with curves
presented by other authors, JUNQUEIRA (2019) and
UNSWORTH (2010).
An experimental curve only using data from the
instrumented bridges was obtained by regression.
, 48,97. "#$,%&' (5)
where fb,1 = first bending natural frequency of the su-
perstructure; L = main span length of the bridge in
meters.
Figure 5. Experimental first bending frequencies of the super-
structure – main span of bridges relationship.
To consider the bending natural frequencies on the
prioritization ranking of bridges, an index of regular-
ity was considered. This index reflected the greater or
lesser frequency agreement with the given standards.
Thus, the farther from the experimental curve ob-
tained by regression, the higher the coefficient to be
used to multiply the damage identified in the bridge,
i.e., the factor B of equation 2.
In the fatigue study, fatigue strength of steel was
defined by S-N Wohler curves in accordance with pa-
rameter curves specified by AREMA (2013) to steel
bridges, and by CEB (1988) to concrete bridges. A
Rainflow analysis was first accomplished to count the
stress cycles induced by train.
To meet future demands, concessionary of the rail-
way requested studies to estimate remaining-fatigue-
life for increasing load to 36tonnes/axle,
40tonnes/axle, and 42tonnes/axle.
Remaining-fatigue-life of the bridges, calculated
in years, was also considered when these values were
less than 100 years. An inverse coefficient propor-
tional to the residual age in years was considered to
multiply the probability of failure of the structure, the
term Pr1 of equation 3.
5.5 Strategical evaluation of a structural failure
Consequences of a bridge failure can be evaluated in
different levels according to 3 different subject areas:
a) Executive level: is related to the difficulty of
performing emergency rehabilitation on bridge struc-
ture in the occurrence of a structural failure that inter-
rupts the passage of trains;
 b) Operational level: is related to the difficulty to
resume the flow of trains by other alternative rail-
ways.
c) Manager level: is related to the strategical im-
portance of the asset in the railway, taking also into
account financial losses due to structural failure.
In the SGA, all these areas of the concessionary at-
tribute a rate of 1 to 5 for each asset, considering the
aspects described above. These ratings are used to
weigh the probability of failure, term Pr1 of equation
3, thereby making it greater if strategical importance
of the bridge is greater.
5.6 Estimation of costs
Currently, bridge rehabilitation costs are estimated
from the costs of bridges rehabilitated in the past, i.e.,
through historical indexes obtained by maintenance
performed. These indexes are given in R$/m and are
related to the bridge length according to the system
and structural material.
With adoption of new inspection approach, cost in-
dexes are being suited to the new approach, consider-
ing rates in R$/m, R$/m2 or R$/m3, and different in-
dexes for different damages. Thus, the maintenance
costs can be estimated from the amount of damage
identified during inspection.
Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas - ABNT 2016.: Ins-
peção de pontes, viadutos e passarelas de concreto. Rio de
Janeiro: ABNT, NBR9452.
Comité Euro-International du Béton - CEB 1988.: Fatigue of
concrete structures – State of the art report. Lausanne: CEB,
Bulletin 188.
Departamento Nacional de Infra-Estrutura de Transportes -
DNIT 2004: Manual de Inspeção de Pontes Rodoviáiras. 2.
Ed. Rio de Janeiro: IPR, Publicação 709.
Departamento Nacional de Infra-Estrutura de Transportes -
DNIT 010/2004-PRO: Inspeções em pontes e viadutos de
concreto armado e protendido - Procedimento. Rio de Ja-
neiro: IPR, DNIT 010/2004-PRO.
Fédération Internationale du Béton - FIB 2002.: Management,
maintenance and strengthening of concrete structures. Tech-
nical report prepared by FIP Comission 10. Lausanne: FIB,
Bulletin 17.
Fédération Internationale du Béton - FIB 2003.: Monitoring and
safety evaluation of existing concrete structures. State-of-art
report prepared by Task Group 5.1. Lausanne: FIB, Bulletin
22.
Junqueira, J.F.A. 2019. Proposta para Identificação Estrutural de
Pontes e Viadutos Ferroviários. Instituto Militar de Engenha-
ria (IME), Ministério da Defesa, Exército Brasileiro Febru-
ary 2019. Rio de Janeiro.
Maia, N.M. and Silva, J.M., 1997. Theoretical and experimental
modal analysis. Hertfordshire, England: Research Studies
Press.
Unsworth, J.F. 2010. Design of Modern Steel Railway Bridges.
Taylor & Francis Group. New York: CRC.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The BMS System of the railway operated by MRS has

been expanded and was called SGA, to comprehend
the increasing quantity and diversity of data coming
from bridge assessment, as well as to be more com-
prehensive in its computational structure and to be ap-
plied to other types of assets like culverts and tunnels,
and not only bridges.
An approach based on element level inspection
was adopted in this new version, what has brought
benefits of special condition assessments using the
raw inspection information and bridge management
system deterioration forecasting and evaluation.
An innovative aspect was to consider data ob-
tained from the structural tests and monitoring in this
new approach, allowing considering others structural
performance indicatives, like concrete strengths and
modulus, carbonation depths and remaining fatigue
life, during the ranking of the priority matrix.
The objectives with the new BMS have been
achieved as from the bridge ranking it is possible to
prioritize the maintenance of the assets.

7 REFERENCES

American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Asso-

ciation – AREMA 2013:. Manual for Railway Engineering -
Structures. Maryland
Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas - ABNT 2008.: Pro-
jeto de estruturas de aço e de estruturas mistas de aço e con-
creto de edifícios. Rio de Janeiro: ABNT, NBR8800.