Performance evaluation of patch repairs on historic concrete structures (PEPS): preliminary results from an American case study

Abstract

While there have been many studies on the performance criteria of concrete patch repairs, there are few specific studies on the long-term performance of patch repairs designed to preserve the aesthetic significance of the original fabric of culturally significant concrete structures. In order to address this issue, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), Historic England (HE) and the Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques (LRMH) commenced work on an international collaborative research project, ‘Performance Evaluation of Patch Repairs on Historic Concrete Structures’ (PEPS). Begun in 2018, the PEPS project aims to produce practical guidance that will help those repairing historic concrete through the assessment of case studies in the USA, England, and France within a variety of climatic and environmental conditions, typologies, and repair materials. The operational phases of the research project consist of in situ tests and laboratory analyses performed on both the original substrate and previous patch repairs. In this paper, preliminary results from the Phase II & III in-situ assessments of a single case study in the United States of America are presented, and the differences in aesthetic and technical performance between repairs from three different intervention campaigns are discussed.