Condition Assessment of Concrete Assets

With exceptional functionality and extended life expectancy, concrete remains a trusted construction material during the service life of structures. Concrete assets, including industrial and commercial buildings, tanks, stacks, bridges, tunnels, and beyond, are critical structures for owners, operators and the wider community alike. Effective management of these assets is therefore critical in maintaining the confidence needed for all stakeholders. Specific confidence considerations include:

• The in-service condition of an asset shows sufficient structural capacity to sustain the Serviceability and Ultimate Limit States.
• The acceptable risk management of the assets, with life cycle costs minimised.
• The asset’s construction aligns with the specifications to which they were designed. 

The ALS Approach

ALS provides a unique combination of engineering and inspection services to support clients in effectively addressing these requirements and in understanding the condition of their concrete structures.

Our engineering team includes highly experienced civil and structural engineers who deliver condition assessments of concrete assets including:

• Concrete structural adequacy modelling and analysis of assets for an expected service life.
• Concrete durability modelling and calculation of remaining service life.
• End of service life condition assessment of concrete assets with 50 years or plus service age.
• Advanced microscopic analysis and investigation of concrete disintegration.
• Post incident assessment of concrete structures impacted by fire, acid leakage and mechanical impact.
• Provision of technical expert opinions on disputes and legal cases.
• Recommendation of the scope and timing of remedial and maintenance works.
• Asset management assistance and providing civil and structural consultation to the clients in managing their assets.

With our multidisciplinary team using these advanced techniques, our services can cover:

• Consultation to the clients in defining the most cost-effective scope condition assessment to maintain the service condition of their assets. This includes regular condition assessment and during major shutdowns.
• A comprehensive array of structural and durability inspection, testing and modelling services for concrete assets.
• Performing destructive, non-destructive and laboratory testing services.
• Investigating any disintegration mechanism within concrete matrix due to external and/or internal mechanisms including performing investigation for:
  • Alkali Silica Reaction (ASR);
  • Delayed Ettringite Formation (DEF);
  • External sulfate attack and sulfate expansion; and,
  • External acid attack. 
• Tailored scope of durability and structural assessment of concrete structures for:
  • Bridge assessments including load rating of bridges;
  • Tank and reservoir assessments including structural crack assessment and water tightness calculations of concrete tanks; and,
  • Chimney and stack assessments including the effect of dynamic wind, seismic, and thermal loads.
• Managing and performing industrial research on the durability performance of new concrete mixes and effect of introducing recycled materials to concrete.

Using our advanced project management capabilities, ALS brings a cost-effective solution to the delivery of comprehensive condition assessments of structures. This is achieved by applying an array of non-destructive and destructive testing including:

• Concrete comprehensive strength and density assessment.
• Concrete reinforcement investigation including the type, depth, size, spacing of rebars.
• Concrete contamination assessment including chloride and sulfate ion ingress testing and modelling.
• Investigating concrete defects including honeycombing, delamination, voids within concrete.
• Concrete durability and structural crack condition assessment including thermal, shrinkage, corrosion, and map cracks in structures.
• Concrete carbonation and loss of alkalinity testing and modelling.
• Petrography of concrete samples and concrete raw materials.
• Full X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) chemical analysis of concrete.
• Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) for detailed concrete microstructure assessment.
• Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDX) for detailed compositional analysis.
• X-ray diffraction (XRD) for investigating the crystalline phases present in concrete.