Abstract
In South Korea, problems caused by material deterioration of time-worn concrete structures have been increased recently. Because severe material deterioration could damage the structure's safety, it's important to evaluate the old structure's condition and structural capacity regularly to keep its proper performance. The safety evaluation of concrete structures has been initiated and performed periodically since 1995 according to a guideline in accordance with a law in Korea. The guideline prescribes the evaluation types, intervals and methods of the target structure. A lot of cost and labor have been invested every year to carry out the regular safety evaluation. However, it's not clear that the current manual could inspect the old structure's condition and assess the structural capacity precisely. Thus, the verification study initiated to figure out the Korean safety evaluation manual's practicalness. First, the Korean manual was analyzed and then compared with that of other countries for concrete bridges which are representative concrete structure. After that, the previously written evaluation reports were collected and analyzed to find out how the safety evaluation has been carried out. Based on the study results, the parts requiring verification of the manual were drawn. A research program is in progress in order to verify the parts by performing tests with actual structural members from decommissioned concrete bridges.