Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting II

The Second International Conference on Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting (ICCRRR 2005) was held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 24-26 November 2008. The Conference followed the very successful First International Conference, also in Cape Town in 2005, and continued as a collaborative venture by researchers from the South African Research Programme in Concrete Materials (based at the Universities of Cape Town and The Witwatersrand) and The Construction Materials Sections at Leipzig University and MFPA Leipzig in Germany.

The background, in industry and the state of national infrastructures, continues to be highly challenging and demanding.The facts remain that much of our concrete infrastructure deteriorates at unacceptable rates, that we need appropriate tools and techniques to undertake the vast task of sound repair, maintenance and rehabilitation of such infrastructure, and that all this must be undertaken with due cognisance of the limited budgets available for such work. New ways need to be found to extend the useful life of concrete structures cost-effectively.Confidence in concrete as a viable construction material into the 21st century needs to be retained and sustained, particularly considering the environmental challenges that the industry and society now face.

The conference proceedings contain papers, presented at the conference, and classified into a total of 12 sub themes which can be grouped under the three main themes of (i) Concrete durability aspects, (ii) Condition assessment of concrete structures, and (iii) Concrete repair, rehabilitation and retrofitting. The major interests in terms of submissions exists in the fields of innovative materials for durable concrete construction, integrated service life modelling of reinforced concrete structures, NDE/NDT and measurement techniques, repair methods and materials, and structural strengthening and retrofitting techniques. The large number of high-quality papers presented and the wide range of relevant topics covered confirm that these proceedings will be a valued reference for many working in the important fields of concrete durability and repair, and that they will form a suitable base for discussion and provide suggestions for future development and research.