Demonstrating the Test Procedure for Preventive Maintenance of Aging Concrete Bridges

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper “Demonstrating the test procedure for preventive maintenance of aging concrete bridges” reports a work about the evaluation of preventive maintenance data, through an experimental procedures, useful to facilitate efficient maintenance of deteriorated concrete bridges. The topic of the manuscript is current and of considerable interest both for scientific community and designers. Consequently, every additional innovative contribution is important. However, some improvements are recommended before the publication in Infrastructures Journal:

- Lines 27-28 consider as reported in recent research work as 10.1016/j.istruc.2022.11.135;

-       Improve the quality of Figure 3;

-        Delete Figure 4, is not clear and does not add contributions to the text;

-   Add a new Section with clear discussion of the results obtained through the application of the proposed procedure.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your professional opinion.
I have revised this thesis to reflect your opinions as much as possible.
In addition, the contents of this thesis have been added to conform to the format of the article.

1. Lines 27-28 consider as reported in recent research work as 10.1016/j.istruc.2022.11.135

(10.1016/j.istruc.2022.11.135 Added reference : Lines 27-28)

2. Improve the quality of Figure 3

(The quality of Figure 3 has been improved : Lines 118)

3. Delete Figure 4, is not clear and does not add contributions to the text

(Figure 4 has been deleted)

4. Add a new Section with clear discussion of the results obtained through the application of the proposed procedure.

(In keeping with the structure of this paper, sections 2 and 3 have been added with a clear discussion of the results obtained through the application of the proposed procedure in each country : Section 2.3, 3.1 )

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic is worthy of investigation even though the paper is not mature for publication due to the following issues which need a major revision

 

Line 16 abstract: “the authors mention “bridge reinforcement” but it is likely “strengthening” or “retrofit” or “rehabilitation”.  Reinforcement is intended as the concrete-embedded steel elements and not the techniques used to increase the structures’ capacity. Please correct in the whole manuscript

Line 54 page 2: “that can” can be replaced with “to”

Line 89 page 2: please explain what “overall bridge evaluation grade was C in 2021” means.

Figure 3 has very poor quality. Numbers cannot be read. Please remake the figure

In section 2, a large mention of the Morandi bridge collapse has been done even without emphasizing that Europe has probably the oldest bridge stock and Italy in particular. To this end authors are suggested to cite the following paper, which is also useful in section 2.3 since it describes the new and unified Italian bridge management system, and gives numbers related to the huge amount of bridges present over the country:

10.3390/infrastructures6080111

However, section 2.3 seems too short to be an autonomous section. It could be put together with the previous one.

Figure 5 is very qualitative. Please make it in a more quantitative shape or discard it

Why the black background of figure 6? White is much better. Moreover, a bit smaller would be better

Lines 197-199 page 7: among the aging  factors, the distance from the sea and from industrial facilities should be mentioned

What is “precipitation” in line 23 page 8?

Line 239-252 page 8: it is not clear if experimental data collected on the dismantled bridge can be used to build degradation laws or as an instant picture of degradation. After this moment, in fact, the degradation is different and aging will not proceed in the same manner. However, the authors should emphasize that this method cannot be easily applied, and being very expensive. Moreover, the method should be more clear if it was applied to a case study with quantitative evaluation rather than only qualitative ones.

Fig. 8  shall be reorganized since it covers several pages. Putting the images on two columns would allow obtaining a one-page figure.

 

References: the last reference is not numbered

Author Response

Thank you very much for your professional opinion.
I have revised this thesis to reflect your opinions as much as possible.
In addition, the contents of this thesis have been added to conform to the format of the article.

1. Line 16 abstract: “the authors mention “bridge reinforcement” but it is likely “strengthening” or “retrofit” or “rehabilitation”.  Reinforcement is intended as the concrete-embedded steel elements and not the techniques used to increase the structures’ capacity. Please correct in the whole manuscript

(Reinforcement was entirely revised to rehabilitation to suit the contents of the manuscript)

2. Line 54 page 2: “that can” can be replaced with “to”

(It's corrected)

3. Line 89 page 2: please explain what “overall bridge evaluation grade was C in 2021” means.

(The content of line 89 has been deleted to have a uniformity for the purpose of this paper or the content that received a C grade based on the US infrastructure rating standard)

4. Figure 3 has very poor quality. Numbers cannot be read. Please remake the figure

(Figure 3 changes so that it looks better)

5. In section 2, a large mention of the Morandi bridge collapse has been done even without emphasizing that Europe has probably the oldest bridge stock and Italy in particular. To this end authors are suggested to cite the following paper, which is also useful in section 2.3 since it describes the new and unified Italian bridge management system, and gives numbers related to the huge amount of bridges present over the country:10.3390/infrastructures6080111

(A good example of preventive measures in the maintenance of bridges in Italy has been added to the reference : Line 100 )

6. However, section 2.3 seems too short to be an autonomous section. It could be put together with the previous one.

(Sections 2 and 3 were modified to fit the article by adding analyzed content)

7. Figure 5 is very qualitative. Please make it in a more quantitative shape or discard it. Why the black background of figure 6? White is much better. Moreover, a bit smaller would be better

(Unnecessary Figure 5 was deleted and Figure 6 was modified to conform to the content of this paper)

8. Lines 197-199 page 7: among the aging  factors, the distance from the sea and from industrial facilities should be mentioned

The contents of the papers have been amended as follows.

(In addition, information related to environmental factors such as structural shape, traffic volume, temperature, humidity, amount of snow removal agent and distance between the facility and the sea is utilized. Based on these data by bridge and data by members, the deterioration rate can be calculated through regression analysis according to the design load of the bridge.) Line 279-281

9. What is “precipitation” in line 23 page 8?

The wording of the papers has been corrected as follows.

(“precipitation” -> "the average annual rainfall" )

10. Line 239-252 page 8: it is not clear if experimental data collected on the dismantled bridge can be used to build degradation laws or as an instant picture of degradation. After this moment, in fact, the degradation is different and aging will not proceed in the same manner. However, the authors should emphasize that this method cannot be easily applied, and being very expensive. Moreover, the method should be more clear if it was applied to a case study with quantitative evaluation rather than only qualitative ones.

I agree with you.
However, the need for such an experiment is not applicable to all demolished bridges, and it is of the opinion that it is necessary to use it as an indicator to build quantitative data.
Therefore, I have added the contents so that these contents can be included.

(However, this method is not suitable for application to all bridges because of the high maintenance cost. Therefore, it is reasonable to select a representative bridge suitable for the environment and region and use it as an index for qualitative evaluation.) Line 378-381

11. Fig. 8  shall be reorganized since it covers several pages. Putting the images on two columns would allow obtaining a one-page figure.

(Figure 8 has been modified to fit the page)

Reviewer 3 Report

Demonstrating the test procedure for preventive maintenance of aging concrete bridges

Manuscript Number:

In the present paper authors proposed experimental procedures for obtaining preventive maintenance data to facilitate efficient maintenance of deteriorated concrete bridges.  However, the paper requires some improvement before it can be recommended for publication, it is proposed to re-submit a thoroughly revised version of the manuscript, considering the following comments.

 

1.     Overall recommendation should be reported in one sentence at the end of the abstract 2.     The authors should overview the recent progress made in the relevant area in the past two years or so. Such as: https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13010185 etc. Literature Review on External Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) Reinforcements for Concrete Bridges. Special Publication, 356, 203-223. 3.     The paper is well written and it is easy to follow, only the authors needs to go thoroughly revised version to correct the typo-mistake. 4.     Please enhanced the discussion part by incorporating  some other variable

 

5.     Author should highlight the assumptions and limitations and future research direction of the study.

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your professional opinion.
I have revised this thesis to reflect your opinions as much as possible.
In addition, the contents of this thesis have been added to conform to the format of the article.

1. Overall recommendation should be reported in one sentence at the end of the abstract.

(As a method of predicting the future performance of aged concrete bridges, it is effective to understand the actual aged bridges through experiments, and this study intends to propose the method.) Line 20-22

2. The authors should overview the recent progress made in the relevant area in the past two years or so. Such as: https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13010185 etc. Literature Review on External Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) Reinforcements for Concrete Bridges. Special Publication, 356, 203-223. 

Papers on recent studies of concrete bridges were added as references.

[Application of Ultra-High-Performance Concrete in Bridge Engineering and  Literature Review on External Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) Reinforcements for Concrete Bridges] Line 442-446

3. The paper is well written and it is easy to follow, only the authors needs to go thoroughly revised version to correct the typo-mistake. 

(Corrected typos and stylistics in this paper)

4. Please enhanced the discussion part by incorporating  some other variable.

(In this paper, the content was added and the discussion part was modified to fit the article)

5. Author should highlight the assumptions and limitations and future research direction of the study.

(The limitations of this study and the direction of the study were added) Line 379-385

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

as the comments were addressed the paper can be published