IABSE WORKSHOP HELSINKI 2015 (ePDF)

The IABSE Workshop “Safety, Robustness and Condition Assessments of Structures” focuses on recent developments of making structures safer for unexpected, unforeseen, accidental and extreme events. It is a continuation of the IABSE Workshop 2013 held in the same venue on almost the same title – except “Failures” changed to “Condition Assessment”. This Workshop reflects on the topical question of creating assessment codes for existing structures, where the condition assessment data could prospectively be utilized. On the assessment of existing structures, some uncertainties that can be taken into account in the design stage can be alleviated, whereas new ones will arise due to ageing, renovations, strengthening and defects. In the last few decades, relatively low-cost technologies have become available to measure and analyse numerical data on structures, but less has been reported on successful practical utilisations and related quality demands. If such data is adopted at code-level, there shall be minimum requirements for considering its reliability. For example: how many, which location and what type of material specimens one should take from an existing structure to prove its current strength parameters, and how to deal with deviations in the results.