Step 4 Estimate Remaining Functional Life (Civil)

When you are done setting the Conditions Status for the RBI Analysis, you need to estimate the Remaining Life. This only applies for Age-Related DMs.

Methodology

The key question here is: “When do we expect the failure scenario to occur?”

Remaining Functional Life - Only for Age-Related DMs

Without a “crystal ball” or seer to look into the future the practitioner uses an educated guess of the remaining functional life considering the historical data about the asset, knowledge about the degradation process and comparable situations for similar assets. The condition status that was observed during the last inspection is taken as starting point. It is assumed that the asset is not inspected or maintained.

Typical Age-Related condition monitoring includes wall thickness readings for steel assets. Corrosion rate allows determining a remnant life as the time when a minimum wall thickness is reached. For concrete assets, information may be available about the extent of chloride ingress, from which the rate of degradation can be estimated.

The risk-based inspection aspect of Civil considers the (in)accuracy of the Remnant Life estimation in the Confidence assessment (Step 8).

Software

Remnant Life

• Select the Remnant Life tab and click Edit.
• Open the Civil RL Questionnaire.

Open the Civil Questionnaire to determine RL.

• Answer the questionnaire. An appropriate Remnant Life is selected automatically (e.g. minor damage = 10 y).
• Alternatively enter an appropriate Remaining Life.
• Add Notes.
• Click Close and Save.

Fill in the Civil Questionnaire to determine RL.