Defining a Digital Strategy in a BIM Environment to Manage Existing Reinforced Concrete Bridges in the Context of Italian Regulation

Abstract

Regulatory activity concerning the management of existing bridges has recently been affected by updates, for instance, in Italy, which calls for a speedy and pragmatic approach based on new technologies such as building information modeling (BIM), when dealing with the survey and risk classification as well as the evaluation and monitoring of structural safety. This paper focuses on the development and integration of a digital solution, based principally on the specific framework developed by the authors, which supports BIM modeling and information management activities, in the structural setting under investigation, through the use of several technologies and tools, namely BIM-authoring, CDE platform and visual programming, in addition to programming in Python. Starting from the organization of a specific BIM object library and the initial data, inserted by means of a custom-made input environment, it was possible to reproduce digital models of bridges in accordance with specific information requirements following the new Level of Information Need setting. The applicability of the proposal is tested on two judiciously chosen real-life cases with different characteristics. Through this implementation, a series of advantages emerge, including expediting traditional procedures for BIM modeling, accessibility and traceability of information—which are constantly updated to support the monitoring of structural safety over time—and the decision-making process related to the bridge management context.