In this quarterly Research Seminar, Alice Alipour, Ph.D., P.E., Principal Investigator; and Ning Zhang, Ph.D. Student, present work under the ABC-UTC research project entitled An Integrated Project to Enterprise-Level Decision Making Framework for Prioritization of ABC conducted at Iowa State University.

Research Seminar Documents:
An Integrated Project to Enterprise-Level Decision Making Framework for Prioritization of ABC - pdf of presentation
Q&A Session - pdf (to be posted soon!)

Description: The choice of using a specific ABC technique depends on a host of different factors including: applicability to specific bridge site, criticality of the bridge to the network, and availability of capital funds for its implementation. Some of these factors have contradicting effects, as a faster ABC technique often entails higher investment levels; on the other hand, a faster technique for a bridge with high criticality to the network may result in large savings on user costs. This project details the development of a framework that provides a balanced portfolio of ABC techniques on bridge sites over a prioritization process for bridges at the network level. While a network-level scheme is used to select the bridges for rapid replacement based on their network criticality, a project-level scheme is conducted to optimize the choice of ABC techniques. To account for the effects of different construction strategies, the costs associated with each replacement activity are calculated, including direct costs from the actual replacement of bridges and indirect costs experienced by network users due to the bridge closure during construction.

Presenters:

Presentation Graphics:

Figure 1. Comparisons and gaps of the construction cost per sq ft between ABC techniques and conventional techniques from ABC-UTC Project Database

Figure 2. Limitations and constraints of the model