Towards a sustainable design of regular and prestressed concrete structure

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The progress in structural engineering design is strongly influenced by the awareness of our modern society in the areas of the environment, sustainability and the efficient use of materials and technology. The need of industry is a reflection of the perception of the society and its demand on improving the quality of life for all citizens and the future generations. Prestress concrete and in particular research on deterioration of prestressed concrete plays a vital role in fulfilling future needs of the construction industry, to urgently address the deteriorating conditions of the nation's highways, and to improve their performance, durability and efficiency.  While considerable progress has been made in evaluating corrosion of normal reinforcing steel, the prestressing steel deterioration cannot be detected conveniently with the available electrochemical tests, which, needs to be modified and calibrated to the existing condition of prestressing strands in the field. Due to several facts, for example, the combined action of high stress and corrosion can lead to a sudden failure and rupture of the steel; and repair techniques developed for normal reinforced concrete can not be applied to prestressed structures because full prestressing does not allow concrete removal.  The main objectives of this research program is to increase the knowledge on the durability of existing and newly built prestressed concrete structures in order to prolong their service life, minimize repair and monitoring costs and to improve their long-term safety. Comprehensive study on the bond at the prestressing steel-concrete interface would be vital to address the deterioration problem.  Also the understanding of the long term economic effects of various design, assessment and intervention options Develop a new set of HPC formulations that incorporate industrial/municipal by-products materials. These formulations will extend infrastructure service life, minimize social costs, reduce traffic congestion/productivity losses, and improve human/environmental health. Provide policy recommendations that incorporate life cycle analysis into major design and construction decisions. Develop degradation models specifically for prestressed concrete.