Service Life Prediction of Flexible Concrete Mattresses (FCMs) in the Yangtze River

Many scholars have studied the failure mechanism of waterway regulating structures, but there is still a need to improve research on their reliability and service life in the industry. Currently, flexible concrete mattresses (FCMs) are the regulating structure widely used on the Yangtze River Golden Waterway, so it is important to study their service life. The stability function has been built based on the mechanism of stability against sliding and a time-varying reliability model. Experiments have been conducted to analyze the critical failure load of FCMs, determine the influence parameters, and derive a service life calculation formula. Finally, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River were taken as an example for analysis.