Condition Assessment of Civil Engineering Assets

Abstract

The management of engineered assets like cooling tower structures constructed from reinforced concrete, and pipe racks fabricated in steel, generally receive less maintenance emphasis than plant equipment such as instrumentation, pumps, switch gear or vehicles. This seems more apparent in mining and mineral processing firms where production output is the dominant concern. Coupled with the usually longer life span of civil structures and static mechanical components, this tendency often leads to limited knowledge about the condition of assets like cooling towers, substation buildings, and pipe racks which, in principle, cannot run to failure. The paper is based on an ongoing case study of a large industrial complex. Three sources of data are being explored to provide insight regarding the condition assessment of engineering structures in practice. The perplexing initial findings suggest that despite advances in condition monitoring technologies, more often than not, visual inspection prevails as the assessment method and thus confines budget provisions for maintenance activities.