A Brief Review of Stochastic Control of Structures

Abstract

Pavement performance modelling is an essential element of a pavement management system (PMS). The model developed plays a critical role in several aspects of the PMS including financial analysis. In developing countries like India, PMS is the needed approach for the optimum utilisation of the available scarce resources. Pavement management system is concerned with optimal use of materials in time and space, leading to cost optimisation. This chapter focuses on methodology involved in the prediction of pavement condition using probabilistic techniques. Since traffic loading, pavement materials, construction methods and environmental condition are not deterministic, therefore, probabilistic techniques are used. Markov chains have the property that probabilities involving the process will evolve in the future, depending only on the present state of the process and so are independent of the events in the past. The state of the transition matrix will be defined based on the overall pavement quality indices (OPQI), and element of the transition matrix will be determined by using several methods. Steady-state transition matrix will be obtained from one-step transition matrix. The probabilistic model requires only a minimal amount of data such as pavement class, pavement condition of two consecutive years and pavement length. OPQI shall be utilised as index, and the present technique in pavement management systems will create good systems which may lead to more savings of the road maintenance funds and enhance the ability of the road network to provide better level of service at network level.