Model-based estimating for concrete bridges: a feasibility study

Designing and estimating civil concrete structures is a complex process which to many practitioners is tied to manual or semimanual processes and cannot be further improved by automated computer-based processes. This paper presents a feasibility study for the development of an automated estimator for concrete bridge design, and demonstrates that such estimators can add significant value to interactive design and estimating and, because of this, offer themselves a future. The contribution of this paper is threefold: (a) to identify points where values can be added to the processes of design, assessment and construction of concrete bridges, (b) to embed such values into the process of automated estimating, and (c) to specify the functional requirements of the automated estimator.