A new performance based method for design and maintenance of reinforced concrete structures

Best concrete research paper by a student - Research has shown that the cost of managing structures puts high strain on the infrastructure budget, with<br/>estimates of over 50% of the European construction budget being dedicated to repair and maintenance. If reinforced concrete<br/>structures are not suitably designed and adequately maintained, their service life is compromised, resulting in the full economic<br/>value of the investment not realised. The issue is more prevalent in coastal structures as a result of combinations of aggressive<br/>actions, such as those caused by chlorides, sulphates and cyclic freezing and thawing.<br/>It is a common practice nowadays to ensure durability of reinforced concrete structures by specifying a concrete mix and a<br/>nominal cover at the design stage to cater for the exposure environment. This in theory should produce the performance required<br/>to achieve a specified service life. Although the European Standard EN 206-1 specifies variations in the exposure environment,<br/>it does not take into account the macro and micro climates surrounding structures, which have a significant influence on their<br/>performance and service life. Therefore, in order to construct structures which will perform satisfactorily in different exposure<br/>environments, the following two aspects need to be developed: a performance based specification to supplement EN 206-1<br/>which will outline the expected performance of the structure in a given environment; and a simple yet transferrable procedure<br/>for assessing the performance of structures in service termed KPI Theory. This will allow the asset managers not only to design<br/>structures for the intended service life, but also to take informed maintenance decisions should the performance in service fall<br/>short of what was specified. This paper aims to discuss this further.