Condition assessment of civil infrastructure in Europe - recent developments and what might be ahead

Infrastructure is subject to continuous ageing. This has given life cycle management of infrastructure an increasing role. Reliable inspection and monitoring tools are therefore an increasing demand. The paper provides a short overview on major activities going on in Europe followed by a presentation of current projects in the field of civil engineering discussing topics being related to combinations of non-destructive testing methods and modular control, and data acquisition approaches. In this paper the two major construction materials in civil engineering - steel and concrete - are discussed. Regarding reinforced as well as pre-stressed concrete a combination of different non-destructive test methods is often required allowing reliable results for material characterization, flaw detection and the determination of component specific geometry parameters. A multi-sensor measurement approach with a high degree of automation is therefore required. Two measurement devices (OSSCAR and BetoScan) having been developed recently will be described. Regarding steel constructions an example from the field of pipeline inspection is shown where the combination of NDT with fracture mechanical assessment is directly possible. Both fields are delivering the required interfaces where fracture risk is evaluated in probabilistic terms. Therefore, this procedure can be used as a tool for inspection based life time conceptions. The paper concludes with an outlook on future trends for degradation monitoring.