Overview
Bridges are key assets of transport networks, a pylon for the society and its economic growth. Hydraulic actions, especially scour are the leading causes of their failure worldwide. Exacerbated by climate change, bridge failures induce fatalities and traffic disruptions with severe economic and societal consequences. To date, the lack of fragility functions and recovery models has prevented the development of a reliable framework for risk and resilience assessment of bridges exposed to hydraulic hazards. As a result, network operators are unable to prioritise restoration and allocate resources objectively and systematically.
The ultimate goal of ReBounce is to fill this important capability gap by delivering an integrated framework for the quantification of risk and resilience of flood-critical bridges and the associated transport networks upon which they reside. To this end, the project will deliver for the first time in the international literature: (i) realistic and sufficient flood intensity measures for representative bridge typologies; (ii) rigorous fragility models that will dynamically take into account temporal variations of critical parameters, e.g. scour, debris built-up and ageing; (iii) novel multi-parameter restoration functions that will simulate the effect of restoration tasks on the capacity and functionality of bridges accounting for uncertainties in the idle times and resourcefulness; (iv) test-application of the developed assessment framework on two different road networks in the EU and recommendations for increased system resilience.
The proposed research will be carried out by Dr Marianna Loli, under the supervision of Dr S Mitoulis, University of Surrey. Secondments have been agreed with the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks and JBA (UK), world-leaders in transport resilience and flood risk management who will provide cutting-edge training to the Fellow and increase the impact of ReBounce.
Hydraulic actions are responsible for the damages of bridges, leading to significant economic and societal consequences. Network operators are ineffective in prioritising restoration and distributing resources to develop a reliable scheme for risk and resilience estimation due to the lack of fragility functions and recovery models. The EU-funded ReBounce project developed an integrated scheme for the assessment of the risk and resilience of bridges exposed to hydraulic actions and the transport networks on which they are based. The project provided realistic and adequate flood intensity measures for representative bridge structures, solid fragility models that elaborated temporal variations of critical parameters and innovative multi-parameter restoration functions. The system was tested on two different road networks in the EU, leading to recommendations for improving its resilience.