Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting III

Abstract

This conference is the third in a series that ran in 2005, then in 2008, and now in 2012. All have been held in Cape Town, South Africa, and have been a collaborative effort between the Universities of Cape Town and The Witwatersrand in South Africa, and the Multifunctional Construction Materials Group at Leipzig University and the Leipzig Institute for Materials Research and Testing (MFPA Leipzig) in Germany. As in the previous conferences, excellent support has been given by researchers and practitioners from these two countries; nevertheless, this remains a truly international conference, with authors being drawn from 54 countries and numerous research and industrial organisations. This continues to fulfil an aim of these conferences, to strengthen relationships not only between Africa and Europe but also between countries and regions from all over the world. These Proceedings contain papers presented at the conference, classified into a total of 12 sub-themes which can be grouped under five main themes: – Concrete durability aspects – Condition assessment of concrete structures – Concrete repair, rehabilitation and retrofitting – Developments in materials technology, assessment and processing – Concrete technology and structural design While considerable progress has been made in recent years towards understanding deterioration mechanisms for concrete in its various forms, and repair and rehabilitation technologies have advanced markedly, the fact remains that a vast stock of concrete infrastructure worldwide remains in a serious state of disrepair and needs substantial work to maintain and possibly restore to acceptable levels of service. The challenge still remains of finding new ways to extend the useful life of concrete structures cost-effectively. Confidence in concrete as a viable construction material must be retained and sustained, particularly considering the environmental challenges that the industry and society now face. A large number of papers discuss performance and assessment of innovative materials for durable concrete construction. Interesting fields, some quite new, are covered such as self-healing techniques, high performance concretes, and strain hardening composites. The number of papers submitted on the topic of service life modelling and prediction of durability confirms the positive international developments towards performance-based methods for durability design and specification. Another fact that is evident from the paper submissions is that large advances have recently been made in the fields of non-destructive testing and condition assessment of concrete structures. The papers in the proceedings cover interesting new techniques for the assessment of reinforcement corrosion and their interpretation. Further, vibrationbased evaluation of the structural capacity of reinforced concrete members is discussed, representing a relatively new and promising technique for the assessment of corrosion- or fire-damaged structures. The majority of papers discuss recent developments in concrete repair, rehabilitation and retrofitting techniques. An important research area lies in the field of specifications for repair materials and systems. Here, an integrated approach is needed, linking assessment techniques and service life modelling to appropriate repair methods. A number of papers deal with these important issues, confirming that the industry is on the right track towards efficient and durable repairs. Based on research reports and case studies, latest developments on repair strategies and materials are presented, ranging from surface protection techniques to full-scale repairs. Bonded concrete overlays and patch repairs remain important fields