It is well established that nation’s bridge population continues to age, and there are not enough funds for the rehabilitation and renewal of all existing bridges that are deemed as “deficient” due to posting. As rehabilitating and replacing “posted” bridges is deferred due to financial constraints, it has become even more important to be able to objectively evaluate the structural condition and safe load capacity of these deficient bridges. In the last decade there has been a great thrust for objective condition assessment, repair and renewal technologies, and non-destructive evaluation methods. However, it is unreasonable to expect that the time and resources required for an in-depth evaluation of every single one of more than 150,000 bridges deemed “structurally deficient of functionally obsolete” will be available (Chase,2001). In this study, integrated applications of analytical, experimental and information technologies for reliable condition-assessment are presented for the health monitoring of large bridge populations in the context of “fleet monitoring.” A research study for re-qualification of 1,651 reinforced concrete T-beam bridges in Pennsylvania based on the fleet health monitoring concept is summarized in this example.

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