A New Approach for Analyzing Safety and Performance Factors in Civil Infrastructures Using Correlation Networks and Population Analysis

Prasad Chetti, Hesham H Ali, Dario Ghersi, Robin A Ghandi, Brian Ricks, Lotfollah Najjar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Public safety and economic growth are some of the key factors in motivating governments to keep their civil infrastructures, in particular bridges, safe and sound. However, the American Society for Civil Engineers gave a C+ grade for U.S. bridges in 2017. It has been observed that many parameters associated with bridges, such as geographical locations, designs, materials used, and traffic patterns, play key roles in determining the safety and deterioration rates of bridges. However, there is still a lack of studies that analyze the exact impact of all relevant parameters. The motivation of this study is to propose a new data-driven model that employs the concept of population analysis in assessing the impact of each potential parameter and extracting critical information associated with civil infrastructures and their deterioration patterns. We use a correlation network model to analyze and visualize the big data associated with more than 600,000 bridges in the national bridge inventory database. Graph theoretic analysis is applied to the correlation networks to find elements or clusters of interest. A sub-set of 268 bridges across the US of the same age are considered for this case study and the Markov clustering algorithm is used to obtain the clusters from the correlation network. Enrichment analysis is applied to the clusters to identify the significantly enriched input parameters. Preliminary results reveal several facts, including that prestressed concrete bridges in the Southeast region perform better than steel bridges in the Midwestern region. The obtained results are supported by previous research and further validated by the exploratory factor analysis when dividing the clusters into two groups. The proposed network model provides a new data-driven methodology for evaluating the safety and performance of structures. It provides domain experts with valuable information on how to efficiently allocate time and funds for inspecting existing bridges and how to identify key bridge parameters suitable for designing and constructing new bridges in various geographical areas.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationStructural Health Monitoring 2021
Subtitle of host publicationEnabling Next-Generation SHM for Cyber-Physical Systems - Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, IWSHM 2021
EditorsSaman Farhangdoust, Alfredo Guemes, Fu-Kuo Chang
PublisherDEStech Publications Inc.
Pages593-600
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781605956879
StatePublished - 2021
Event13th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring: Enabling Next-Generation SHM for Cyber-Physical Systems, IWSHM 2021 - Stanford, United States
Duration: Mar 15 2022Mar 17 2022

Publication series

NameStructural Health Monitoring 2021: Enabling Next-Generation SHM for Cyber-Physical Systems - Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, IWSHM 2021

Conference

Conference13th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring: Enabling Next-Generation SHM for Cyber-Physical Systems, IWSHM 2021
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityStanford
Period3/15/223/17/22

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Science Applications
  • Civil and Structural Engineering
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Building and Construction

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