ABSTRACT
This contribution presents the WEB based prognosis tool “LeCIE” (Life Cycle Assessment for Civil Engineering of Railway Bridges). LeCIE aims to develop a concept for the predictable life cycle management of engineering structures in the rail sector. In order to achieve this objective, inspection results regarding damage and damage processes are combined with probabilistic degradation predictions, forecasting procedures, monitoring and assessment methods. This includes the development of a framework for the life cycle’s management system which takes into consideration structural components and singular as well as combined damage in the context of the overall structure of concrete-steel, steel and composite bridges. At the current stage of investigation, the focus of this tool is on railway bridges as this project has been financed by the Austrian Federal Railways company ÖBB. excluding the loading data, the method is general and could adopted for road bridges in the future.
