Majority of the thousands of timber bridges around Australia are more than 50 years old and strengthening and rehabilitation of deteriorated timber bridges is a strong financial commitment. The maintenance cost of timber bridges are affected significantly by a number of deterioration mechanisms which require a systematic approach for diagnosis and treatment. Evaluation of the risk of failure of these bridges is of importance in bridge design, performance assessment and decision making to optimize rehabilitation options. Early diagnosis of possible deterioration scenarios will be useful for formulating an effective asset management strategy. Thus, infrastructure managers from many road authorities and councils across Australia need predictive models for condition assessment to optimize the repair and maintenance management process over the life cycle of a given timber bridge. USQ recently started working on timber bridges through undergraduate projects. The proposed project aims at developing a decision support tool for timber bridge rehabilitation or replacement.

Assoc Prof Weena Lokuge

• Dr Andy Nguyen

• Centre for Future Materials
• Institute for Agriculture and the Environment
• School of Engineering and Built Environment

• Civil Engineering
• Interdisciplinary Engineering
• Materials Engineering

• Doctor of Philosophy (DPHD)
• Master of Research (MRES)