ABSTRACT
In the past the chemical industry developed and offered products and techniques based on the material properties and provided the market in this way with recipies for maintenance and repair of concrete structures. The very complex deterioration mechanisms of concrete and steel in concrete have not sufficiently been taken into account. This situation in the past could be called the trial and error period. The main technical advance in the field in the past 10 years is the fact, that the civil engineering society learned and accepted that maintenance and repair is a real engineering task needing a profound knowledge based design and execution. This starts with the clear understanding of the mechanisms leading to deterioration, followed by strategies, concepts and procedures for maintenance and repair based upon the mechanisms and ends with assessment and monitoring procedures and techniques again based upon the mechanisms. That means that we nowadays solve the problem on a sound technical basis, design the maintenance and repair work and on that basis define the needed material properties for every specific maintenance or repair case. In this way the best technical and economical solution can be found. This recent change of the situation is documented in the RILEM Recommendation 124 SRC “Strategies for Repair of Concrete Structures Damaged by Steel Corrosion” and in the series of drafts of CEN-standards on protection and repair of concrete structures.
