Abstract
Bridge construction has a significant amount of data on the periods of trouble-free operation of bridges of various designs and purposes. These data serve as a reliable basis for developing schedules of planned preventive inspections and repairs of bridge structures. However, the statistical nature of this information does not exclude the occurrence of seemingly unpredictable events (destruction of the road surface, loss of stability and destruction of the load-bearing elements of the bridge structure). These events usually occur suddenly, although this is only an external manifestation of hidden processes that occur naturally in the structure up to a certain point in time starting from the moment it is put into operation. To outline these processes, the presented article proposes to describe the bridge structure as a dynamic system developing in an “acute mode”. The mathematical model describing such a dynamic system contains a parameter equal to the time coordinate when a radical change in the law of development of the controlled dynamic system occurs. The testing of the bridge life using forecasting methodology was carried out on the example of a cable-stayed bridge and confirmed its effectiveness.