Inconsistency recovery and assessment for crack data of steel box girders.

Steel box girder of long-span bridges is often bothered by fatigue cracks, and the crack database established based on inspection reports can be quite valuable for understanding and investigating realistic issues. While the inconsistent data caused by the non-standardised recording way and the possible human mistakes should be solved as preconditions. By introducing the concept of data lineage that enables to trace different types of problems, a data recovery process is put forward in the paper, including two ways based on images and crack positions. In the meantime, it is proposed to measure the inconsistencies based on the data reliability, which also provides a way to quantify the effect of data recovery. Accordingly, the data obtained from the inspection reports of four long-span bridges in China are processed, from which the existing problems are addressed by defining a total of six types of data lineages. The effect of such a data recovery process is depicted by the increment of reliability and by the comparison with the original data, indicating the remarkable benefits from the long-term inspection data with sufficient crack photos as evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]