A WEB BASED TOOL FOR SELECTING REPAIR OPTIONS AND LIFE CYCLE COSTING OF CORROSION DAMAGED REINFORCED CONCRETE STRUCTURES

摘要

The UK concrete repair industry is believed to turn over 2 billion dollars per annum, more than 3 percent of the entire UK construction industry turnover. While many structures are well maintained within a suitable management program, a number of owners do not have the resources to cope effectively when presented with a one off problem, their first or their only case of reinforcement corrosion. This paper described a new web based tool to guide the user through the process of: a. prediction of time to chloride or carbonation induced reinforcement corrosion, b. the selection of effective repair options, c. the budget costing of repair options d. life cycle costing of the chosen repair options Examples of its application are given for both carbonation and chloride induced corrosion. Elements of the tool can be used independently or sequentially, depending upon the requirements and expertise of the user and on the available information from the structure under evaluation. Costs for different techniques have been developed by a peer group of UK contractors, consultants and materials suppliers. Although given in British Pounds they can be used by simple exchange rate conversion in other countries if no better local data are available. Costs should be considered comparative budget prices rather than absolute values. Case studies are given where the paper has been applied to reinforced concrete structures suffering from chloride and from carbonation induced corrosion. The studies show that by quantitative analysis of good quality survey data the costs and advantages of different repair options can be analysed objectively.