The current practice in structural design is strongly impacted by the construction stage. Traditionally, the design process aims at selecting the solution with the lowest initial construction cost while fulfilling prescribed requirements during a fixed service life. This approach is now revisited to integrate the whole “life-cycle” of the structure, i.e to consider the structure from the design step to the end of the service life. Indeed, activities related to the structure life-cycle such as operation, maintenance/rehabilitation and end-of-life generate economic, environmental and societal impacts, which may be more significant than those at the design/construction of the structure. Each design solution might be associated with a different life-cycle, and then with differents impacts. For this reason and within an approach of sustainable development, this PhD work proposes to analyze structures during the overall life-cycle of the structure in accordance with three axes : economic, environmental and social. A performance-based analysis is also performed to take into account different maintenance strategies. Finally, a multi-objective optimization process and a multi-criteria analysis are proposed to assess all design solutions and have a global vision that helps bridge owners and managers in the decision making process
