Introduction:

 
Bridges represent a critical Part of the Infrastructure Network in any Country as it plays a vital Role in the Movement of Goods as well as the Transit and Transportation of Passengers. Therefore the Maintenance and Life Cycle of Bridges play an Important and critical Role in the context of Economic Infrastructure as a whole in addition it is also important to reduce the Greenhouse Emissions resulting from the construction and Repair of Bridges through more creative and sustainable Solutions.
The following Design Options were considered for the Bridge and then an Analysis was undertaken for each of them with regards to the Emissions and Energy Consumption for each Alternative.

 

LIFE-CYCLE TIMELINE:

The following Maintenance Plan was put in place for each design Option according to the needs of its Components:

 

Life Cycle Inventory and Analysis:

Regarding the Emissions we find that the R analysis provides us with the following Radar Plot which shows the amount of Emissions resulting from each Design Option, we notice clearly that Design Option 1 by and far is considered the least polluting and Energy consuming of all three.

 

AHP and TOPSIS:

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a mathematical method that assigns a score to each Design Option based on the Weights assigned to certain built-in Criteria by the Expert, The results here show that Option 1 has the highest score.

 

Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is another Method that works by determining the Distance between each Alternative and the Ideal Options as well as allowing tradeoffs between Multiple Criteria within the same Option, as the results show that Option 1 has a clear advantage.

 

References used:

The Carbon Footprint of Bridges, David Collings.
Bridge Carbon Emissions and Driving Factors Based on a Life-Cycle Assessment Case Study: Cable-Stayed Bridge over Hun He River in Liaoning, China, ZhiWu Zhou, Julián Alcalá, and Víctor Yepes.
(Ellobody Ehab ,Finite element analysis and design of steel and steel-concrete composite bridges).
Marceau, M., Nisbet, M.A. and Van Geem, M.G., 2007.Life cycle inventory of portland cement concrete.