Fatalities due to bridge collapse

Abstract

In the context of risk or lifecycle cost assessments of bridges, in addition to the probability of collapse, damage consequences are used as input parameters. One of the most important damage consequences of a bridge collapse is the number of possible fatalities. Known methods for estimating the potential number of fatalities are presented in this paper and a new method is presented that makes use of the current state-of-the-art regarding the causes of bridge collapse. Using this method, the number of potential fatalities can be individually estimated depending on the type of bridge.