Strengthening of Existing Structures: Technical Standards

Abstract

The growing interest toward the use of composite materials in civil engineering over the last decade has led panels and international committees to an extensive drafting of ad hoc codes, decrees, and recommendations regulating the use of “non-conventional” composite materials.

Worth mentioning are, for instance, the programming regulations drafted and issued on specific journals by the fib Task Group 9.3, the European founding committee in 1998, or the official journals of the American Concrete Institute (ACI), whose aim is to provide new guidelines for the design and construction of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) concrete structures.

A further contribution on the topic comes from the European Committee for Standardization that published the new regulations of design and strengthening with FRP in the Eurocode 8 “Design of structures for earthquake resistance” Part 3 “Assessment and retrofitting of buildings”, Draft N 7, January 2003.

In Italy, the instructions of CNR-DT 200/2004 introduces the use of FRP for the seismic strengthening of reinforced concrete (r.c.) members. Subsequently, the General Assembly of the Higher Council for Public Works adopted the “Guidelines for Design, Implementation and Inspection of FRP-Strengthening of reinforced concrete, pre-stressed concrete and masonry structures” on July 24th, 2009.

This chapter deals with various international technical standards in order to empower the reader with a global knowledge of these technical standards.