Society expects that failure of civil structures is extremely rare and relies on the care and expertise of the professionals involved in the design, construction and maintenance of structures. Analysis shows that human errors are a major source of structural failures. Relevant measures to improve the safety of civil structures include combating human error, applying hazard recognition methods, establishing organisational documents and performing adequate monitoring and maintenance of structures. Nowadays dealing with existing structures is a major engineering task. Safety evaluation of existing structures follows a stepwise procedure with an increasing degree of refinement of investigations. Target safety levels may be defined as a function of the hazard scenario and the characteristics of the structure under consideration. To improve durability of structures an original concept is to use Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) to “harden” those zones of the structure that are exposed to severe environment and high mechanical loading. This conceptual idea combines efficiently protection and resistance properties of UHPFRC and significantly improves the structural performance. The concept is validated by means of a numerical simulation and applications.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bailey, S.F., Antille, S., Béguin, P., Imhof, D., Brühwiler, E.: Niveau de sécurité requis pour l'évaluation des ponts-routes existants. (Required safety level for the evaluation of existing road bridges). Research report No. 550, VSS Zurich, 2001 (in French).
Brühwiler, E., Fehling, E., Bunje, K., Pelke, E., Design of an innovative composite road bridge combining reinforced concrete with Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete. Proceedings, IABSE Symposium “Improving Infrastructure Worldwide”, Weimar, September 2007.
Brühwiler, E., Denarié, E., Rehabilitation of concrete structures using Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete, UHPC-2008: The Second International Symposium on Ultra High Performance Concrete, March 05–07, 2008, Kassel, Germany.
Charron, J.-P., Denarié, E., Brühwiler, E., Permeability of Ultra High Performance Fiber Reinforced Concretes (UHPFRC) under high stresses, Materials and Structures, Vol. 40, No. 3 (March), 2007, pp. 269–277.
Denarié, E., Brühwiler, E., Structural rehabilitations with Ultra High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concretes, International Journal for Restauration of Buildings and Monuments, Aedificatio, Vol. 12, No. 5 and 6, 2006, pp. 453–467.
Habel, K., Denarié, E., Brühwiler E., Structural response of elements combining UltrahighPerformance Fiber-Reinforced Concretes (UHPFRC) and reinforced concrete, ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering, Vol. 132, No. 11, November 2006a, pp. 1793–1800.
Habel, K., Denarié, E., Brühwiler, E., Time Dependent Behaviour of Elements Combining ultrahigh performance fiber reinforced concretes (UHPFRC) and Concrete, Materials and Structures, Vol. 39, No. 5, June 2006b, pp. 555–567.
Habel, K., Charron, J.P., Denarié, E., Brühwiler, E., Autogenous deformations and viscoelasticity of UHPFRC in structures. — Part I: Experimental results, Magazine of Concrete Research, Vol. 58, No. 3, April 2006c, pp. 135–145.
Habel, K., Charron, J.P., Denarié, E., Brühwiler, E., Autogenous deformations and viscoelasticity of UHPFRC in structures — Part II: Numerical Modelling, Magazine of Concrete Research, Vol. 58, No. 3, April 2006d, pp. 147–156.
Habel, K., Denarié, E., Brühwiler, E., Experimental Investigation of Composite Ultra-HighPerformance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete and Conventional Concrete Members, ACI Structural Journal, Vol. 104, No. 1, 2007, pp. 93–101.
ISO International Standard: Bases for design of structures — Assessment of existing structures. ISO/TC 98/SC 2/WG6 N35, 2001.
JCSS Probabilistic Model Code.http://www.jcss.ethz.ch
Kamen, A., Denarié, E., Brühwiler, E., Thermal effects on physico-mechanical properties of Ultra-High-Performance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete, ACI Materials Journal, Vol. 104, No. 4, July–August 2007, pp. 415–423.
Kamen, A., Denarié, E., Sadouki, H., Brühwiler, E., UHPFRC tensile creep at early age, Materials and Structures MAAS3402, 2008, in press.
Oesterlee, C., Denarié, E., Brühwiler, E., In-situ casting of UHPFRC protection layer on crash barrier walls, Proceedings, Advances in Construction Materials — Symposium in honour of Hans W. Reinhardt, July 2007, University of Stuttgart, Germany.
Roelfstra, P. E., Salet, A. M., Kuiks, J. E. (1994) Defining and application of stress-analysis-based temperature difference limits to prevent early-age cracking in concrete structures. Proceedings n°25 of the International RILEM Symposium: Thermal cracking in concrete at early age, pp. 273–280. Munich, Germany.
Rossi, P., Development of new cement composite material for construction, in: K. Dhir, P. C.
Hewlett, L.J. Csetenyi (eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Innovations and Developments in Concrete Materials and Construction: 17–29, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, 2002.
SAMARIS, 2005, Report D22, Full scale application of UHPFRC for the rehabilitation of bridges — from the lab to the field, European project 5th FWP / SAMARIS — Sustainable and Advanced Materials for Road Infrastructures — WP 14: HPFRCC, http://samaris.zag.si/.
Schneider, J., Introduction to Safety and Reliability of Structures. Structural Engineering Document 5, IABSE — International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering, Zurich, 1997, 138p.
Wuest, J., Comportement structural des bétons de fibres ultra performant en traction dans des éléments composés. Doctoral thesis No 3987, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 2007, Switzerland.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
About this paper
Cite this paper
BrÜhwiler, E. (2009). Improving Safety and Durability of Civil Structures. In: Ibrahimbegovic, A., Zlatar, M. (eds) Damage Assessment and Reconstruction after War or Natural Disaster. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2386-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2386-5_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2384-1
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-2386-5
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)