Failure Analysis as a Base for Developing Quality Control Systems

Recent experiences and wide spread surveys on the quality of building constructions with respect to life-time aspects like alterations in the profile of use, deterioration of the quality of the used materials due to fatigue, climatic effects etc. and in many cases a lack of inspection and maintenance led to the development of new guidelines for addressing these problems. These guidelines, splitted in two parts, one more formal one dealing with general questions and legal aspects, the other laid out to give tangible technical information for the engineer doing on site checks to determine the structural strength of the construction under consideration, are based on a risk assessment concept which judges possible failures against possible hazards of the structure, the profile of use and the robustness and ductility of the structure. These concepts are partly elaborated in analogy to the well know risk assessment concepts of earthquake engineering. The base for the life-time monitoring is a reliable data base of the structural properties in form of a “Project-Book”. For buildings to be constructed it is recommended to develop this project-book parallel to the design, for existing buildings the relevant data must be gathered, if necessary with on site inspection and material testing. Provision for the necessary qualifications of the engineer who is doing the checks are made also with respect to the question of responsibility when judging and certifying the build infrastructure.