Using Concrete Service Life Prediction Models to Estimate the Life-Cycle Costs of Concrete Structures.
Using Concrete Service Life Prediction Models to
Estimate the Life-Cycle Costs of Concrete Structures.
(232 K)
Ehlen, M. A.
NISTIR 6327; May 1999.
Modelling Service Life and Life-Cycle Cost of
Steel-Reinforced Concrete. Report From the
NIST/ACI/ASTM Workshop Held in Gaithersburg, MD.
Proceedings. Summaries of Invited Presentations.
Summary 2.10. November 9-10, 1998, 17-18 pp, 1999.
Available from:
National Technical Information Service
(NTIS), Technology Administration, U.S. Department of
Commerce, Springfield, VA 22161.
Telephone:
1-800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000;
Fax: 703-605-6900.
Website: http://www.ntis.gov
Order number: PB99-144933
Keywords:
reinforced concretes; chlorides; concretes; corrosion;
life (durability); transport processes
Abstract:
NIST's Building and Fire Research Laboratory has
developed several economic techniques applicable to
construction that have become ASTM standards. These
include techniques for life-cycle costing and analytical
hierarchical decision-making. The techniques have been
applied in the development of the life-cycle costing
software, BridgeLCC, for use in comparing new technology
and traditional materials and systems for bridges on a
common life-cycle economic basis. In the first
instance, BridgeLCC was applied to bridge applications
of fiber-reinforced polymer composites but, as part of
NIST's Partnership for High-Performance Concrete
Technology program, it is now being applied by several
State Departments of Transportation to life-cycle
costing of high-performance concrete (HPC) in bridges.
The service life input is provided by the model
described in the presentation. BridgeLCC incorporates
the NET-developed life-cycle costing standard, ASTM E
917, Practice for Measuring Life-Cycle Costs of
Buildings and Building Systems, and uses the NIST cost
classification scheme. It can be used for sensitivity
analyses, including Monte Carlo simulations. Examples
of applications are: In building a new bridge, should
steel, or conventional concrete, or high-performance
concrete, be used in the girders? Or, for an existing
bridge, should it be repaired or replaced? Should it be
painted now or painted later? In applying BridgeLCC to
the life-cycle cost of a bridge, the model addresses all
bridge-related costs that occur during construction,
e.g., maintenance and repair, and disposal of the
structure (whether incurred by the agency, by the users
of the bridge, or by affected "non-users'?. All costs
are discounted to a single number in present-day dollars
using an interest rate formula.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899