Assessing Distress Cause and Estimating Evaluation Index for Marine Concrete Structures

Abstract

Marine concrete structures may be affected with wide varieties of distresses where they may have different severity and extent. A periodic inspection program should be drawn to assess the structure condition and to specify the maintenance strategies. These inspections are carried out with several destructive and non-destructive tests which are very expensive. This paper tried to classify concrete distresses in the marine environment first and then, provided an evaluation method using an expert system. An extensive literature review, interviews with expert supervisors and a national survey were used to develop this expert system which is capable of determining the health index for concrete structures in marine environment. This marine structure condition index (MSCI) can be applied to assess the structural condition with a visual supervision and elementary measurements. The index is based on expert views with respect to the type, severity and extent of distresses. The specified index provides some appropriate maintenance strategies for the structure. Case studies showed that the proposed method gives better results and removed some deficiencies of some exiting approaches like what US Army Corps of Engineers suggested before.