ANALYSIS OF BRIDGE INSPECTION FINDINGS USING THE STRUCTURAL TOPIC MODEL

Abstract

 Findings from a bridge inspection may contain important maintenance and management information such as the degree of damage, which cannot be identified in the standard categories in the system. In this study, the Structural Topic Model is applied to the findings description, which is a part of the bridge inspection report. The results show that the descriptions contain the type of damage found, and the bridge inspection results can be categorized based on that. Additionally, ASR, a damage characteristic which is one of the early bridge deterioration causes in the Hokuriku region, surfaced as a topic. Consequently, we show that focusing on the ratio of topics in each inspection report can lead to preventive maintenance. By analyzing the findings by professional, it is shown that the system could be enhanced in a manner that does not require increasing the number of standard categories.