Sustainable Rehabilitation of Civil and Building Structures

The Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have more than 50 000 major civil structures as bridges, tunnels and dams with an asset value of some 20 to 40 billion Euros. Many of these civil structures are 50 to 100 years old and in need of re novation to extend their service lives. The project addresses these existing structures and other buildings in 3 principal ways: - Renovation and maintenance procedures to increase life length and sustainability and to avoid or postpone the costs and en vironmental impact of replacement. As an example, prolonging the service of 2% of the civil structures by 10 years should save more than 350 million Euros in the Nordic countries. - Methods and tools for inspection and monitoring of structures to minimiz e, from cradle to grave, total ownership cost and environmental impact. - Life cycle cost analyses (LCCA) of existing civil structures as a tool for decision support regarding sustainable renovation and management. A project in cooperation between: Tec hnical University of Denmark, DTU, Denmark; Oulu University, OU, and Destia Oy, Finland; Norut Narvik, Statkraft and Statens Vegvesen, Norway; and Luleå University of Technology, LTU, Ramböll, Skanska and Banverket, Sweden. Project Leader: Professor Bj örn Täljsten, DTU/LTU, bt@byg.dtu.dk Scientific Leader: Professor Lennart Elfgren, LTU, lennart.elfgren@ltu.se The Norwegian pariticipants will primarily be involved in developing innovative solutions for maintanance, repair and strengthening. Another im portatant Norwegian contribution will be field application and verification as well as dissimination of the methods and tools developed in work done by the other participants. This means that Norut, Statkraft and NPRA will play an important part in the pr oject.