Comparative study on Bayesian updating of bridge safety model

Probabilistic assessment of ageing bridges has become an important research area as it interests not only researchers but investors, municipalities and even governments. In this paper a simple bridge model is presented in a probabilistic context. A comparative study is carried out involving damage indicators and Bayesian updating. Bayesian updating is a powerful tool, which has been used in various research areas. However, using it for approximating the safety level of a bridge is challenging due to the various sources of uncertainties that may affect the performance of a measurement based damage indicator. The effects of different factors involved in the updating are examined in this paper and compared.